living like each day is my last
When I started driving two and half years ago, I was terrified for my life. It felt like death lurked at every intersection. What if I flinch or blank out on the highway and suddenly crash? I looked in awe at the people who would drive every day as if it was nothing, who could spend 10 hours driving on the road without fear. How could I get to their level of comfort?
Over time, I have grown more comfortable driving around, to the point of even commuting to work every day by driving. I have become one of those people! However, my driving skills have plateaued in a dangerous zone and rather than reassuring my existential dread every time I drive, I have learned to live with it. I still completely fear for my life every time I drive, but well, existence is short anyways right?
So every day I drive to work I am now acutely aware of my own mortality. It has been incredibly freeing. If you will die any day now, what's the point of holding back? Just live! There's no time to be embarrassed. My worry of how people perceive me has decreased dramatically. Surely which jacket I wore on Monday won't matter if I'm dead on Friday.
The flip side is that I have had more trouble with long term thinking. It's getting harder to care about what happens 5 years from now. Will I even still be alive? It's harder to really value my money as well and so I've been spending more.
I think this way of living is likely unsustainable. Perhaps I might start taking the bus more often and thus reduce my thoughts of mortality to the more familiar social anxiety of public transport. Still, this daily grappling with mortality has really put things into perspective for me. I value my friends even more and the work hustle less. I've gotten to like more and more these moments where I hang out with people and talk about nothing in particular, or those special times where I feel nature shine through our industrialized world.
Update: The week after writing this post, I started taking the bus and I suddenly feel much safer again and more stable in my life. I am once again able to plan longer term tasks. It's amazing how much the commute routine can affect your life!