One Thing to Do Before You Die
Did you hear? Dave Freeman, the author of 100 Things to Do Before You Die, has died, just like that, at 47! He fell and hit his head. Honestly!
It just goes to show that you have NO idea how long you’ve got. And to keep the cheery theme alive, consider all the people who have become paralyzed by falling off their mountain bikes, etc.
You can’t lock yourself in your room, and even if you did, you could be hit by a chunk of toilet ice falling out of a plane and through your roof, struck by lightening as you took a shower, or … well, you get it. Life is fleeting. In fact, that’s been a theme of mine for a while. In Making Kind Choices, I wrote about how amazing it would be to have a wristwatch that would tell you not what time it is now but how much time you had left so that you could know what’s important to cram in. You’d look at it and see “40 days, 3 hours, and 2 minutes,” and you’d think, “OMG! Better get a move on!”
So ask yourself: Are you putting off asking that special person for a date, telling your friend you are sorry for some remark that ended your friendship, or, most importantly … buying vegan groceries? Wouldn’t you rather die than have your last meal on Earth cause animals fear, pain, and death?
Oh, and Dave Freeman took this stuff seriously (yes, he didn’t fully “get it,” seeing as how he went to Pamplona and ran with—shouldn’t that be “against”?—the bulls), so he had made a will. Now some of his leftovers, including some useful money, will go to a children’s charity. Good for him! Please follow his lead and put a charity—may I suggest PETA?—in your will, too, or else the state rather than animals will benefit from your death (and you know they’ll only use the money to buy something stupid).
Written by Ingrid Newkirk
