If the world ended tomorrow
Pondering on a thought exercise from a lovely book series.
One of the most enjoyable book series I've read lately is コヒーが冷ないうちに、or Before the Coffee Gets Cold. Each book contains a series of episodic tales of people who decide to go back to the past at a magical café, under certain conditions:
- they can only do so for the duration of time their cup of coffee stays warm
- they must receive their coffee from the youngest female family member of the café owners (past age 7)
- they must receive their coffee from a certain chair in the café that is otherwise occupied by a ghostly figure most of the day (and wait until that figure leaves for the bathroom before occupying it themselves)
- they must drink their cup fully before time runs out
- they have a chance to meet someone from the past who visited that café
- whatever they do in the past cannot change the present
- they cannot move from their chair
- if the timing to meet that person is wrong, they will not meet that person
- they will only be able to try this trip once in their life
- (technically they can also travel to the future, but chances of meeting someone they want to drastically decrease given no tangible information about the future)
If they don't drink their coffee before it goes cold, they can no longer return to the present; they become the ghost that stays at the café 'round the clock.
Okay, all that detail isn't really relevant to most of this blog post, but I do find the premise of the books quite fun.
Anyway, in the third book of this series, one of the characters occasionally reads from this fictious book called 100 Questions. Each question starts with, "If the world were to end tomorrow, what would you do? ..."
It often made me think to myself, if the world were to end tomorrow... what would I do? How would I feel? Would I be sad or have regrets?
Table of contents
Reflecting on my life thus far
Through what I feel are a combination of incredible luck, hard work, and good enough judgment, I can say I've been living a very good life.
My childhood
In terms of how I started out in life, the luck comes from, among other things: healthy genes, 10 fingers and 10 toes; well-educated, determined, stable, and loving parents; a loving, albeit imperfect brother and extended family; and being born in a time and place that didn't experience a widespread pandemic or enduring war.
Still, I was disadvantaged in many ways: I was born middle / upper-middle class in a developing country, female, brown; raised middle class away from most of my extended family and as a minority in the U.S. in a first-generation immigrant household. It helped a lot that my parents were well-educated and fluent in English and raised my brother and me to be the same.
My parents made mistakes and frustrated me, as all parents do, but they never wavered in their love and care for my brother and me. They put us above all other needs. Though we weren't rich and I always wished for more material things, I knew I was spoiled by their love. Because of them, we were law-abiding, financially responsible, always together, and got through the hurdles of earning coveted U.S. citizenship.
Growing up in a stable family with good values is largely due to my parents, though I guess they do remind me that I contributed to that stability. (Chicken and egg? 🐔🥚) I was quite bratty, sassy, whiny, stubborn, lazy with chores, picky with food, contrarian, annoying. I could've been more this or that. Still, at least I was always a good student and generally didn't do drugs or really bad things like that. I studied abroad in Japan and graduated summa cum laude from a pretty good liberal arts university in the U.S. I constantly worried about making them proud, making their efforts to immigrate to the U.S. worth it. I still carry these feelings today as a grown adult.
My family and I haven't (yet? ever?) succumbed to catastrophically bad life events such as unrecoverable (physically, financially) health scares, stolen identity, long term job loss or bankruptcy, freak accidents, mixing with the wrong people, and so on. I have maintained a healthy network of friends. My family developed in me a strong habit of maintaining good fitness since I was a child, and I carry that with me today.
My current adult life
After some teenage years of loneliness and two other bad relationship breakups, I have been happily married for 11+ years. Somehow my partner and I found each other early in our adult lives and stayed together as good and responsible people. From him I learned to eat more nutritious food and care about my overall health, not just my fitness. He has taught me to be a much more caring, thoughtful, patient, and considerate person. He enriches my mind and soul.
Being married to another responsible adult who shares my values has compounded our shared wealth. The beginning of our careers was rough – he started his job hunt during one of the worst recessions in recent history (2008), and I got fired from my first job in less 2 months! Since then, he has had a stable job – he has been at the same place where he got his first job out of college! – where he has climbed up the ladder and is well-respected, though it is stressful. For me, I stumbled my way into a lucrative, stimulating, fun (mostly!), and respected career, also climbing up the ladder and often stressed. Together over the years, we have become financially stress-free. We bought a house 7.5 years ago in a good neighborhood and can pay off the mortgage anytime – at the pace I'm comfortable with, I'm hoping in 1.5 to 2 years.
My particular career gives me flexibility to travel for fun (via workcations, volunteer trips, or full vacations). I've seen more of the world than most people have at my age, or at any age. Some people don't care about travel, but I certainly do, and I know it's a popular "bucket list" activity.
While we can always be better people, I'm proud of who my partner and I are today to our larger society. Together we've donated over 63 units of blood in our lifetime, most of them on our quarterly blood donation + casual but healthy restaurant dates. We vote and stay informed citizens of our country. We are highly regarded in our professional circles. We've served multiple years on our HOA (contrary to popular sentiment, no one wants to do this, and no one wants to boss people around; but minimal things have to be done to maintain by someone in our neighborhood), as the vast majority of our neighbors benefit from our free labor. We are law-abiding. Most of the year (outside of winter), our house's energy consumption is in the bottom 10% of similar households of our area. We like to be comfortable and treat ourselves, but we also want to be conscientious of our impact on the environment – and at least partly offset my environmentally terrible hobby of traveling. Even before we became as financially fortunate as we are today, we've always been generous with our time and resources to both strangers and people we know. (Credit to our families for raising us this way.)
My life overall so far
I feel guilty about my life at times, but I try not to dwell on that feeling for too long – my ancestors I hope are smiling down me, at how their legacy has built up to make me who I am today. I also know that, given the same or better opportunities I had been provided, other people may still feel less satisfied for some reason or another. I try not to waste away these good times or take them for granted.
I wrote the above narrative in a largely positive tone. I skipped over a lot of hardships – not to minimize them, or to give a skewed perspective of my life – but it's my natural tendency (and maybe survival mechanism) to focus more on gratitude, on the things I am thankful for in life. Hardships are things I work myself out of and grow from – and I've done so much growing – but they are not things I want to dwell on or how I want to paint my life, except to remind myself of where I came from and the lessons I've learned as a result.
I don't know how long my fortunate life will continue. I try to keep myself humble by reminding myself that I came from lesser means, and that things can disappear whenever. I work hard to minimize that risk by investing in my health, wealth, relationships, mind, marketable skills, etc. Besides minimizing risk, I also find joy in investing in worthwhile things. The journey itself is worthwhile.
If the world ended tomorrow
And if the world ended tomorrow, or if at least my own life ended tomorrow, how would I feel?
First, o powerful gods, for the record: I don't want to die for a long while!
But if I had to, I think I would be at peace. I have done a lot of things I wanted to do in life already, and I have a lot of the things I already wanted in life. What else do I want left, other than to maintain what I already have? Most of these things I can't do in a day, or if I did, some of them wouldn't hold much meaning:
- I want to retire! Or at least pass my days in a less stressful way.
- I want to know what it's like to not work for an extended period of time... Is this the same as retiring? Or at least take a meaningful sabbatical...
- I want to pay off our mortgage. I'd be proud of that.
- I'd like to see more friends and family. I'm also glad in the time I've already spent with them.
- I don't necessarily have to see more of the world. I've seen quite a lot of it. But I'm always glad to see more if I can.
- It would be super cool if I could become fluent in Japanese, instead of just pretty good. But if I don't, it's OK.
I want to keep my same partner. ❤️ I don't care anymore about being promoted; I just care about doing a good job and doing the right thing. I want my loved ones and me to maintain good health and stay financially stable. I don't go out of my way to prove myself to anyone anymore – consciously... most of the time... except to my family, sometimes.
If the world ended tomorrow, what would I do? I guess I would spend the day like I would any other day, except not work! and make sure it's with my family.
But if it doesn't, I just want to maintain my good life with my loved ones, and continue to become a better, more informed, more skilled, stronger, healthier, calmer person.
I hope I can continue to have this contented, 幸せな perspective for a long time.