Live as if you were to die tomorrow – Mahatma Gandhi

Live as if you were to die tomorrow: This quote talks about the power of the present moment. We’re often caught up between the past and future at the cost of the present moment. Sometimes, the present moment is all we have and the best thing we can do about is to embrace and indulge in it completely. I like this quote because it talks about the temporary nature of today while conflicting with a notion of the future which is forever.

Live as if you were to die tomorrow, Learn as if you were to live forever

Mahatma Gandhi Quotes

The first part talks about boldness, being adventurous and not holding ourselves back. The second part is all about learning, growing and continuously evolving ourselves because there’s so much to understand and make sense of in this world.

Live as if you were to die tomorrow meaning

This sounds rather bold and callous if we look at it in isolation. A part of me loves this idea of living in the moment because we will never know what happens in the future. It encourages us to think of this moment alone in isolation and do what’s best. It also highlights that we need to focus fervently on this present moment and listen to what our thoughts are telling us.

Sometimes, the thought of the future induces a sense of fear and judgement that prevents us from doing what we think. If we were to live as if we were to die tomorrow – maybe we’d stop lying to ourselves and be true to our thoughts. These thoughts will not be adulterated with the sense of being judged or living up to someone’s ideologies. They just ask us to look within and do what we feel like. Wouldn’t it be refreshing and freeing to just live in the moment, do what we feel like and be bold and honest about our emotions?

Learn as if you were to live forever

We’ll never know everything or will ever be perfect. But that’s a good thing. This whole sense of perfection is boring – it gives you nothing to learn or grow from. Growth and learning however are beautiful because they keep us on track. They go beyond the smaller goals of achieving or doing something. They’re internally focused because growth is about mastery and a never-ending goal of continuous improvement.

If we were to learn as if we were to live forever, it would fill us with knowledge, awareness and respect for everyone else in the process. We can be kinder to people who are struggling as they are going through their learning journey and may not know everything that we do. It also teaches us to be humble because we have so much to learn and keep growing. It keeps our ego in check while encouraging us to look to the future and keep learning.

Live as if you were to die tomorrow, Learn as if you were to live forever

Mahatma Gandhi Quotes