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Today, we're going to talk about something a little bit serious.
I want you to imagine that you've been born with the knowledge of when the world will end, down to the hour and minute and how.
What do you do with that knowledge? How would your life be different?
Those questions come up in the last book I read, "Everything Matters!"
It's the story of a young man who's born with this knowledge: The world will end when he is thirty-six.
A comet will hit the Earth and annihilate all life.
As he grows up, the book explores his various responses to this knowledge.
For instance, from about age 18 to 25, he essentially gives up and loses all hope for the future.
Why go to college? What would be the point? Why get married? What good would that do? So he withdraws from the world.
And then, of course, he falls in love. Suddenly he has a reason to live!
So he informs the government and works with scientists to figure out how to survive.
They could either destroy the comet or abandon Earth and emigrate to another planet.
Near the end of all this work and preparation, a new twist emerges: the woman he loves wants to stay.
She's unhappy with this obsession over the end of the world and just wants to enjoy life while she still has it.
We live on a beautiful planet, after all, and it hasn't been obliterated -- yet. Why not enjoy it while it's still here?
He's taken aback by this, and it leads him to think about the choices he's made up to this point,
and how they've affected others in his life. How would he do things differently, even with this knowledge?
At the very last minute, as the comet is impacting the planet, he finds himself with a second chance.
He gets to start over with full knowledge of his previous life and of the end of the world.
But this time around, he makes different choices.
It's very interesting and seems to really be about three basic responses to the foreknowledge of death.
First, you can succumb to despair. You have no drive to do anything, because you know it will all be annihilated anyway.
Second, you can struggle and try to do something about the situation, but this can end up occupying your life.
Or third, you can accept the inevitability of death and focus on being happy, enjoying the moment without worrying about the future.
I thought it was an interesting way to get me thinking about how I'd respond to this kind of situation.
If you're curious about how you might approach this kind of thing, I really recommend this book -- it's very good!
All right, I think that's about it. Thank you!