\r\nThis was written December 12th, 2025<\/i>\r\n<\/p>\r\n\r\nBlog Post: On Death, Regrets, Motivation and Habits<\/h2>\r\n\r\n
I apologize, today turned out not to be a Short Story (or poem) as usual. Instead, I opted to\r\nwrite some thoughts I have and share them with you. Although I may still produce one later today.<\/b><\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n
\r\nDeath, it waits for all. Looms over us. And one day, it’ll finally be your time, just\r\nlike one day it’ll also be mine. And while the exact time remains uncertain, death’s\r\neventuality remains the one certainty we have (allegedly).\r\n<\/p>
\r\nWell, how terrifying is death, truly? Well, it’s bad enough that most of us are constantly\r\nbeing directed by it. Some of us use at as motivation: If our time is limited, why waste\r\nit? Others are simply tyrannized by the fear, paralyzed into inaction. Sometimes seeking\r\ncomfort in unhealthy habits that, ironically speaking, will simply make them approach\r\nthis ultimate doom much faster.\r\n<\/p>
\r\nAnd then, there are those for whom the reality of death becomes much more present. Those\r\nwho have a near-death experience. Or those who learn they’re terminally ill, that they\r\nhave a death sentence. Here, while a few wallow in sorrow, many instead take it upon\r\nthemselves to live the remainder of their lives to the fullest (or at least, for some\r\ntime after their demise). Maybe they’ll start spending a lot more time with their loved\r\nones, or maybe they’ll finally travel a bit (if their health still permits it). Maybe\r\nthey’ll decide to finally decide to learn something they’ve been wanting to learn, even\r\nif they won’t really have much time to use. They’re trying to make up for the lost time.\r\n<\/p>
\r\nBut ultimately, aren’t we all in such shoes? Can’t any moment be the terminus? Even if it\r\nseems to be in the far future, tomorrow could very well be the day you die. If so, would\r\nyou be proud of the day you’ve lived? Or would you instead be filled by regret?\r\n<\/p>
\r\nWell, I like to think back to ancient Egypt to reflect upon that. Ancient Egyptians had\r\nan interesting philosophy when it came to death. When you passed away, you would be\r\nbrought in front of Anubis, who would judge your worth by weighing your heart against a\r\nfeather, what’s considered a symbol of lightness. If your heart was lighter, then you\r\ncould move on to the afterlife. However, if your heart turned out to be heavy, then you\r\nwould be judged unworthy, and Ammit would simply devour you with his crocodile’s maw.\r\n<\/p>
\r\nWell, while the traditional interpretation of this is that ethical or moral lapses, sins,\r\nwill taint your heart, I prefer the more personalize interpretation. That instead, it’s\r\nabout how much weight you’ve put on yourself, how filled with regrets you are, whether\r\nyou abode by your own values. Ultimately, while you are your own worst critic, you are\r\nalso your own judge. When faced with death, you are faced with the ultimate question:\r\n“Have you lived a life well-lived? Was your life worth it? Have you tried your best?”\r\n<\/p>
\r\nAnd while you might have lapses in your life, while you might not be where you’d hope to\r\nbe, that doesn’t mean it’s too late. You are where you are now, and have learned different\r\nlessons. As trite as it sounds, you can’t change the past, you can only enact on the present,\r\nand by so doing influence the future. Wallowing on past regrets is moot, and if you’re\r\nworried, you can still try to compensate for it.\r\n<\/p>
\r\nIf it helps, just remind yourself you technically have no means of knowing the world\r\ndidn’t just start a few minutes ago, just as a video game starts midway through on-going\r\nevents. And from this point on, you can still affect future events, might as well try\r\nto play the game correctly.\r\n<\/p>
\r\nSo, why am I sharing this? Well, because while I don’t quite live this way yet, I do want\r\nquite live this way, and I believe there might still be some edge-cases present, I should\r\ntry to live by a fairly simple philosophy: “What decisions are likely to minimize my\r\nregrets?”. This obviously is tightly coupled with your own personal ethics, along with\r\nyou life-goals and desires. But I believe it can serve as a good compass for decision-making.\r\n<\/p>
\r\nThis is why I opted to move half-way across the world to try to learn an all-new language.\r\nThat’s why I’ve initially opted to start reading daily (Which leisure do I find more\r\nproductive, more impactful?). That’s why I’ve recently opted to start three brand-new\r\nhabits:\r\n
\r\nIt is<\/i> a lot of work, and can definitely be exhausting. However, I still deem the effort\r\nworth it. While I am at times underwhelmed with the result, I’m still proud of what I’m\r\nmanaging to do. Journey over destination. Actually being able to keep up with these,\r\nand what I learn through it, is more important, in my opinion, than the actual results\r\nthey garner. At the very least, even if I fail at achieving top-rate results, I’ll have\r\ntried, and will have had gotten something from it. New perspectives, new skills, new\r\nways of seeing the world, fun, clearer thinking. But regret will not be present in the\r\nlot.\r\n<\/p>
\r\nSo, while I’m not quite far into these habits, it’s not like it’s the first time I try\r\nto accomplish such things. So, what are the main take-aways from my many experiments?\r\n
\r\nIs this easy to do? No, not in the slightest. Does it get easier? Yes, in fact it does.\r\nAre there days where you feel like giving up? All the time! When you’ve had a hard day,\r\nyou get home, you haven’t completed any of your objectives, and still have a few things\r\nto accomplish, it’s oh-so-tempting to just let go and get back at it the next day. But\r\nit’s not worth it. At least, that’s been my experience. At this point, it’s much better\r\nto relax your own requirements, and still complete something, than just completely giving\r\nup. Though it will<\/i> be painful. And ultimately, nothing worth doing comes easy.\r\n<\/p>
\r\nFor example, I’ve had prior experience with this blog, and if you look at it, you’ll\r\nrealize there are many challenges I’ve started, yet they’ve been left incomplete. Why is\r\nthis? Welp, the actual goals were too ambitious, and I ended up skipping some days, pushing\r\nsome of the work in the future, and it just kept accumulating, snowballing. That just\r\nkilled it for me. Which is why I’ve had to generally re-start from scratch. Let’s, for\r\nexample, look at my drawing challenge. I actually did have a pretty good run with it.\r\nHowever, here’s one big issue I had with it. Let’s look at the work involved:\r\n
\r\nUltimately, this was so time-consuming I would frequently postpone the review process to\r\nthe next day, in turn simply making the next day a much longer endeavor. And this simply\r\neventually cascaded.\r\n<\/p>
\r\nAccordingly, one of the big rules I’ve added to this one challenge is that I have no\r\nrequirements towards reviewing. In fact, I’ve actively avoided re-reading what I’ve\r\nbeen writing and reviewing it. Basically, the idea is to lower friction as much as possible,\r\nand allow yourself room to succeed. So far, despite the fact I’ve had a few nights with\r\nsub-optimal sleep as a result, it’s still been fairly successful, which I’m grateful for.\r\n<\/p>
\r\nA quick aside about those habits. Here are a few questions I’ve opted to ask myself when\r\nI’m planning to skip doing something I’ve been planning to do, whether it’s because I’m\r\ntired or some other occasion:\r\n
\r\nSo, with these habits, I’ve mentioned how I’ve “lowered my standards” to push through\r\nthem…does that mean I think I shouldn’t produce anything of quality? Of course not, I\r\ndo think the saying “Everything worth doing is worth doing well” has some merits to it.\r\nHowever, I would argue that in order to do something well, you first need to have learned\r\nhow to do such things, and also be present to work on it. Therefore, I reckon quality is\r\nnot something that should be in the picture at first, but instead only once the habit is\r\nunderway, and enough has been learned. Accordingly, I do plan to eventually write longer\r\nform stories, and draw more involved, interesting, and impressive drawings. And for some\r\nof the stories or concepts I’ve liked, I might even either re-explore them, rewrite them,\r\nor purely review them in the future, shape them into something I’m prouder of. But this will\r\nwait until the habits are well-established. After all, it would be way more regretful to\r\nlose these habits than it would be to get sub-optimal results.\r\n<\/p>
\r\nSo, to get back on this regret, a more popular version tends to be “What would you do\r\nif you knew you would die tomorrow, next week, next month, by the end of the year?”.\r\nWhile it’s also an interesting version, and worthwhile consideration, I feel like it’s\r\nless sustainable than the regret angle. Why? Because the time-scale is much shorter, and\r\naccordingly, you are likely to be less willing to undertake more long-term endeavours. I\r\nexpect if I were to learn to die by the end of the year, I might not have started to learn\r\nto draw, instead learning to improve with something I felt I was more likely to be talented\r\nat.\r\n<\/p>
\r\nYet, you might be curious as to what I would answer to the question: “What would you do\r\nif you learned you had a terminal illness?” Obviously, the answer would not be as simple\r\nas “I would not change a single thing”. The answer, however, would still align with my\r\ncurrent long-term goals, although with more urgency. The biggest contributions I’d want\r\nto make upon this world are ones that could be served by creative work:\r\n
\r\nWill I be to achieve either of those results? Maybe not. After all, if one’s way of thinking\r\nfeels too different, you might simply not be willing to accept it, or might get frustrated\r\nreading it. I’ve known many people who read similar stories as me from the point of view\r\nof a depressed person, and were simply annoyed by the character’s decisions, while I tended\r\nto be more empathetic with them. Remains I think it’s worth trying.\r\n<\/p>
\r\nWhat else would I do if I knew I was going to die? Travel the world to go meet people I\r\ncare about, family and friends that live across the world, and enjoy some time with\r\neach of them, one last time.\r\n<\/p>
\r\nHopefully, you managed to get something from my meandering today. If you get nothing else\r\nfrom it today, just ask yourself: “What are things I would regret doing\/not doing?” and\r\nweigh this against the alternatives. You might realize you might want to live your life\r\ndifferently, and it might give you the motivation to change your life for the better.\r\n<\/p>
\r\nIs there anything you’ve been wanting to start for a while, but simply haven’t yet? Do\r\nyou actually feel motivation towards it? If so, just get started now<\/i>. Don’t wait any\r\nlonger. If you can’t actually fully do it today, then get started with the necessary steps.\r\nGet registered, bring it up to someone who can hold you accountable, anything to get\r\nstarted. And then try never to skip a day, unless there is no other way (or you would\r\nregret not skipping that one day a lot more than you would regret skipping it). Go on,\r\ndo it now! And I shall hope for your success!\r\n<\/p>\r\nBonus<\/h3>\r\n
\r\nI did discuss how we’re all afraid of death, which is unavoidable (unless some\r\ntheories such as quantum immortality, or an after life, are a reality). Well…as scary\r\nas death and its finality might be, I personally find the alternative more terrifying.\r\nWhy? Because of eternity, its implications, and the finite nature of our experiences.\r\nLet me explain myself.\r\n<\/p>
\r\nThe classic worry science-fiction have is that, as you live for eternity, you will \r\nundoubtedly become bored. However, eternity is a much longer period of time, dizzyingly\r\nso. Suppose you lived for all of eternity, as a human, with your current senses and\r\ncognitive. How many different things could you see? Well, the number of images is something\r\nwe could calculate based on our eyes’ resolution. Ultimately, you can probably find\r\ncountless Youtube videos discussing the number of distinct 4K images you could generate.\r\nWhile the number is amazingly high, this is still finite. What about sounds? And smells?\r\nAnd so on and so forth? All of them finite as well.\r\n<\/p>
\r\nOk, so we’re starting somewhere here, hitting limits on the quantity of “moments” you\r\ncould experience (here, moments are instantaneous, a single “frame”). Ok, sure, but we\r\nshould be able to get higher numbers. After all, we’re immobile, and an image can have\r\nits meaning changed by what happens before and after. Sure. Let’s start with the Planck\r\nunit of time, which is considered the smallest unit of time measurable. From there, to\r\nknow how many one second experiences you could live, you simply take all of those possibilities\r\nand put them to the power of 1 second divided by the Planck unit of time. This is already\r\ngetting beyond numbers we can truly appreciate. Yet, all of it still remains finite.\r\n<\/p>
\r\nWe do this with all possible states, where you combine the different experiential factors\r\n(what you see, hear, smell, etc…) and just chain them all together one after the other,\r\nuntil you get one second. Very impressive, encompasses all possible experiences anyone can\r\never live, at least objective experiences.\r\n<\/p>
\r\nIn all of this eternity, this means you would be re-experiencing the same experiences\r\nover and over again, some of them an infinite number of times. Already, this feels wild,\r\nand makes you think that “Yeah, of course you’ll eventually get bored”.\r\n<\/p>
\r\nAh, but here’s the rub, you need to factor in our mental state as well. And this, at any\r\nmoment in time, also appears to be finite. We can only have a finite amount of distinct\r\nthoughts and feelings at a time. And so, if we add this to our “state” at any time, this\r\nmeans we also get a finite amount of one second experiences.\r\n<\/p>
\r\nBut, can’t you still get a unique and unpredictable life? Where the events don’t chain\r\nin a way where you eventually reach a loop? Sure, you can easily intuit this from how\r\nuncountable infinity is obtained with the real numbers, simply by chaining bits or digits\r\nall the way to infinity in whatever order. Still, this does not matter for my point.\r\n<\/p>
\r\nUltimately, you could consider one second, one minute, one hour, heck, even one hundred\r\nyears. Eventually, you’ll have experienced every single variation you’ll ever experience,\r\nand that includes how you think about them, and how you feel about them. This means you\r\nwon’t even perceive you’re reliving the same experiences, since the awareness of it\r\nrepresents a specific state. In other words, after a certain point (which might require\r\nan unbelievable amount of time), your life with have effectively reached its end, since\r\nyou’ll now be repeating the exact same experiences with the exact same thoughts and feelings\r\nthat you’ve already experienced before, no awareness whatsoever. An existence continuing,\r\ndespite having effectively reached its limit.\r\n<\/p>
\r\nI find this dreadful in its lack of satisfaction. You get to experience everything, yet\r\nnot be aware of it. And you’re basically no longer truly “living” anymore, yet still\r\ngoing. It definitely makes me appreciate the finality of death, despite how brutal it\r\nfeels.\r\n<\/p>
\r\nMy apologies for not sharing a story with you today. I expect to get back to the regular programming tomorrow.\r\nI really wanted to write about some of those topics today, and didn’t figure out how to actually handle it through a\r\nstory.<\/i><\/b>\r\n<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This was written December 12th, 2025 Blog Post: On Death, Regrets, Motivation and Habits I apologize, today turned out not to be a Short Story (or poem) as usual. Instead, I opted to write some thoughts I have and share them with you. Although I may still produce one later today. Death, it waits for … Continue reading Writing Challenge 2025 \u2013 15 – Blog Post: On Death, Regrets, Motivation and Habits<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"bgseo_title":"","bgseo_description":"","bgseo_robots_index":"index","bgseo_robots_follow":"follow","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shawnmeanders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shawnmeanders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shawnmeanders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shawnmeanders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shawnmeanders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2533"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.shawnmeanders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2533\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2663,"href":"https:\/\/www.shawnmeanders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2533\/revisions\/2663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shawnmeanders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shawnmeanders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shawnmeanders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}