I turned 20 last week. It is safe to say that my life so far has been interesting if nothing else. I was born and grew up in Bahrain and attended a world-class British international school from the age of 2. So far, I have visited 25+ countries, witnessed the Arab Spring happening around me, have conducted first hand research on the War on Drugs in the Philippines, lived in Manchester (which somehow feels more dangerous than the previous two things) and am now working and studying full-time in Sweden. Yet I have a constant longing for more. It is an itch that I cannot scratch but that I am now content living with.

Those of you reading this article who are a few years or decades older than me will probably be thinking that 20 years old is just the beginning of my life in the ‘real-world’. In many ways this is true. Even though I have experienced a lot in these 20 years, most of my life is (hopefully) still yet to come. Most of my peers are enjoying their studies in the UK, are financially supported by the state or parents and have plenty of free time to drink, party and take other recreational drugs liberally. This self-indulgent hedonism is not nearly as concerning as many sensationalists would like you to believe. A desire to live life day-to-day without much thought on the long term and existential truths is a pleasure I would not want to prematurely take away from any young adult.

Whilst a basic understanding of mortality is something that most are aware of from a young age, it’s much more common for individuals to truly appreciate the significance of a transient life in later stages of their lives. This experience culminates in the form of a mid-life crisis. A mid-life crisis is a painful struggle between one’s past, present and future. One regrets having not lived life to the fullest, questions whether they have entrenched oneself within a system which ‘forces’ them to live a life of bad faith from which they cannot or are simply unwilling to escape from, and recognised that they will soon perish without the ability to rectify or relive their life.

A mid-life crisis, like an existential crisis, focuses on questions of the meaning and purpose of life. Although there are strong, logical arguments which can lift one out of an existential depression, issues of mortality are more difficult to satisfy. This is because once one overcomes an existential crisis and decides how to act and what they want to dedicate their life to, there is still only a limited time to accomplish this goal. In addition to this, one does not know how much longer one has to live but it can be argued that the amount of time left on the proverbial clock is less concerning that there is a clock at all.

Allow me to present a thought experiment. If I were to tell you with 100% certainty that you would die within the next hour, would this affect your current plans? Would this send you into a panic and shock? What would you do with your last hour? Your answer to this is almost certainly that you would feel a sense of urgency and take drastic action. What exactly it is that you would do is not important for the sake of this thought experiment.

Would your plans change if I told you that you had one day to live? What about a month? Or a year? 5 years? The more time you are given to live, the less drastic the action you take would be. Nonetheless, in all of these scenarios, you would be conscious of a timer counting your seconds towards death and would therefore be pushed more immediately to live a life which is truer to what you believe is right and good.

For recently retired readers, the clock may read 20 years remaining. For older readers, perhaps less. Even my class peers who ‘should’ have 60 or so years remaining may have life taken away at a moment’s notice. To live in bad faith is to live a life full of hypocrisy and nausea. The only cure to this is to live in a way which is true to oneself, regardless of how much time is left on the clock. One needn’t act as if every day is one’s last, but that every day may be the last should be a part of reality which one is conscious of. It makes sense to invest in a pension fund, save money, try to live a long and healthy life but this should not stop one from living an authentic life. If the job, house or relationship that you have is not satisfying then one must find another option or live with the guilt of living in bad faith.

Grappling with death can lead to a paralysis in which one fails to take any action. However, this realisation should be empowering rather than depressive as time is the great motivator. There is no better pressure on an individual to complete a task than a deadline. A student can put off a 5000 word essay for which they had 2 weeks to complete and somehow finish it the night before once the adrenaline and stress of failing to submit a paper kicks in. This stress becomes negative only once it is uncontrolled and persistent. Within life, one is not assigned tasks which they must complete but instead is free to decide each and every action taken. It is this stress which can so easily debilitate which also forces us to act.

This time-pressure should not lead to nausea so long as one does not live in bad faith. The reaper should not be feared, nor should dying without accomplishment be feared. It is only to live an immoral and unfulfilled life which should be feared. This pressure should act as encouragement to change your life for the better and to be a positive moral agent. Once this is done, and one has come to terms that they can only ever have a limited impact during their lives, death is no longer negative and doing good regains significance.

Regardless of whether action is taken or not, there is a deadline. No one knows when the deadline is, but knowing that there is a chance it could be cripplingly soon one should be motivated to live authentically. This does not mean that one must spend hours labouring at work or in their studies. Maslow’s idea that one must, or that all can, reach self-actualisation through hard work is a flawed one. Yet, if this is the course of action one truly desires to take, it is a valid way to live authentically. Neither does an authentic live mean that one cannot binge watch new series on Netflix, take holidays, eat junk food or lack a desire to change the world in any significant way. Not only are moments of unproductivity (rest) needed to be productive in other times, the overall positive utility which arises from rest, including long periods of rest, can contribute positively to overall utility in many cases. What is considered an authentic life differs from person to person and therefore no one can prescribe a single correct way of living.

That being said, one thing that all must do is to analyse life. In order to live a meaningful life, one must be aware of these truths and risk falling into crisis. Without the risk of crisis, the fear of death and feeling of hopelessness there is nothing to overcome and nothing to push individuals into living in good-faith. This fear disappears without the conscious prospect of death trying to eat away at our brains. If we lived forever there would always be a tomorrow and so we could live in bad faith endlessly pushing back tasks until tomorrow. Without death there is no need for action and without a need for action one cannot live a meaningful life. It is for this reason that I am thankful that turning 20 makes me uneasy.

This awareness calls me to action. It makes me want to live the rest of my life in pursuit of utility for myself and for others, no matter how long or short I have left to live. The great existentialists within Sartre, Camus, Nietzsche and others have more than convinced me that existential fears can be used to maximise the time I have remaining.

Who knows where I will be 3 years yet alone in 30 years time. Hopefully I will be finished with my Bachelor’s degree, still working with something that I love and that makes a difference; maybe I will still be studying. I might lead a country, start a global corporation, be a professor or I might be worm fodder. Either way, the prospect of dying will continue to breathe meaning into our every action.