If you found out you only had a certain number of months to live, what would you do with it?

I’m sure this is a question you might have seen or heard somewhere before. Either in a book, on a television show, or it’s a question that’s been asked directly to you. Unsurprisingly many don’t answer this question with, I would like to spend the rest of my life making more money or, being the best at my job. Instead, people usually want to spend more time with important people in their life; friends, family, loved ones. So why do many get stressed out when they don’t hit a deadline, or miss the train that would have got them to work 10 minutes earlier. What’s important to most people is time with the people they love, not spending hours working in a place that causes their stress levels to rise.

It’s easy for me, a 20 something web developer writing this article to say, ‘if your job stresses you out, quit that one and find one you enjoy’ when the person reading this could be–a single mother of 5 trying to make ends meat on the only job they can get. Or the recently graduated student who us struggling to find a paid job without experience. As I’ve never been in such a scenario I can’t give the best advice and therefore can understand if you believe this article isn’t for you, but I urge you to read until the end. I’m sure you will find something useful.

For those of us living in developed western countries, we have a lot of things to be grateful for, especially when we compare ourselves to those who lived 200, or even 100 years before us. Turning on a tap and having cold, and hot water available at will; having a strong stable house to live in, a device in our homes that freezes and preserves our food, closed gutters, general sanitation to prevent the spread of common diseases, clean breathable air, the freedom to think, say, and write what we want without being persecuted, the ability to walk into a store a choose a bunch of items that have been shipped from different countries from around the world. I could go on but you get the picture. We have a lot to be thankful for and yet, many of us are not satisfied, we try to achieve more; make more money, get a bigger house, better car, live in a nicer area, which usually leads to more stress in due to harder work, and trying to maintain the level of life achieved, but it’s not important, none of it is, and it doesn’t make sense if you look at it from the in the grand scheme of things .

This doesn’t mean sell all your possessions and live on as little as possible, nor does it mean don’t try to achieve greater feats. The message is, don’t get stressed out, work hard, work smart but don’t push yourself to the point where life stresses you out, work stresses you out, when all you think about is trying to make more money to impress others and live a seemingly important life, it’s not important, work isn’t important especially if you don’t like it.

So my advice is if you’re not doing this already, find something you enjoy doing, change jobs if you must, and spend more time with the people you love, even if it’s a quick phone call or a message on Facebook.

Ollie