The worst thing that could happen to you isn’t death.

It’s lying on your deathbed and not being sure you even existed in the first place.

Life’s short. The average person is alive for just four thousand weeks. They get to experience only 80 summers. The average person also never thinks about that because without realising it, they’ve been fooled into thinking they’ll live forever.

How often do you allow each day to fade away into a meaningless blur? Can you remember what happened to you five years ago, or even last week?

You likely can’t since you’ve forgotten it all.

I’m not saying you should remember every little moment that occurs. That’s not possible and it would overwhelm your mind. But you don’t want to remember nothing from your life. You don’t want to reach your last few days, be asked if you lived, and be unable to give a firm yes in response since you have no proof you really did live.

Imagine how it would feel to go through a whole life, through the whole spectrum of events and emotions, and barely remember any of it.

That’s the worst future I could imagine.

If you don’t want that to happen to you, start making your life more memorable right now. Start making your days stand out so they’re worth remembering. Start living a life you enjoy, or else you won’t want to remember it.

Here are three ideas to think about to make your life more memorable:

1 – Record everything.

Everything that happens to you is interesting.

Every shower, every conversation, every meal, every thought you ponder for a while, they’re all interesting. They might seem mundane in the moment but they’re worth the effort of remembering, so your future self has proof you existed.

You have to record these things, if you don’t want to forget them.

Here are some ways to do that:

• Film videos of yourself
• Take photos of yourself
• Track big milestones in a notebook
• Write down what happens each day
• Write down random ideas you’re having
• Record yourself speaking on your phone
• Jot down your thoughts on the book you’re reading

You want to do this for two reasons.

The first is that you don’t want to forget it all. You don’t want precious moments from your life to be erased forever. Moments that defined you, moments you were connected to others, moments you’ll want to look back on. Recording those moments ensures you won’t forget them.

The second is that your future self will regret not doing it.

I wish my past self had done more to preserve those seemingly meaningless events. I wish I had taken more progress pictures to track my gym progress. I wish I had started journaling earlier so I could peek into a day in the life of me 5 years ago.

You might be having similar regrets.

You can’t change the past but you can start recording your life now. It might seem stupid in the moment but your future self will be so grateful you did it.

2 – Do weird things.

Most people don’t even try to make their lives memorable.

They repeat the same boring actions each day. They eat the same breakfast, take the same route to work, talk to the same people and have the same depressing thoughts. No one moment in their life stands out among the rest.

I wrote in an earlier article about the power of routines. While they’re great for adding structure to your life, they can also rob it of its life. Doing the same things every day quickly becomes boring and a boring life isn’t worth remembering.

Nobody would ever write a biography about someone who lived a normal, average life and followed the same monotonous routines every day until they died.

You might not want a biography written about you but I’m sure you want your life to be a story worth telling. If you want to make it one, start doing weird things every day. Break your routine more often. Do things that feel uncomfortable. That’s the price you must pay for a memorable life.

Go to a different café. Spark a conversation with a stranger. Take a new route to work or school. Do something you’re not used to doing.

This is just delaying gratification.

By doing something hard now, you’ll be rewarded with a life worth remembering. If you want your life to be an interesting story, start doing more interesting things. There’s no shortcut for this.

3 – There’s too little time to be miserable.

A miserable life is an easily forgotten one. It’s a life you wouldn’t want to remember.

You have too little time to waste being miserable anyways. Nobody’s guaranteed their four thousand weeks or 80 summers.

You could die at any moment. Don’t forget that, and don’t waste the one life you have feeling miserable.

Don’t waste it hating the world, playing the victim, being frustrated over the tiniest things, being ungrateful for what you have, and constantly wanting more stuff.

Naval Ravikant has a great quote:

You’re going to die one day, and none of this is going to matter. So enjoy yourself. Do something positive. Project some love. Make someone happy. Laugh a little bit. Appreciate the moment. And do your work.

Stop doing things that make you miserable. You know what they are.

Quit bad habits that make you miserable. Leave relationships that are making you miserable. Don’t be a cruel person to others which will make you miserable in return. Stop reading a book you’re not enjoying that’s making you miserable. Don’t sacrifice the moment you have by making it miserable.

The goal isn’t to become happy all the time. That’s not how life works.

Being miserable all the time is a waste of your life though. You gain nothing from it. You want to minimise the time you spend feeling miserable. Misery isn’t necessary.

If you want your life to be memorable, happiness isn’t even an option. It’s a requirement.

Final thoughts

I’ll end with this idea:

The test of a well-lived life is whether it’s worth remembering at the end.

Life isn’t about how many years you live for. It’s about how worthy of remembering your years are. You don’t need to do and achieve everything possible. Just do your best to make your life worth remembering.

Everyone can say they’ve been alive, but not everyone can say they’ve lived. You’ve been handed the privilege of being alive and it would be tragic for you to waste it. Sure, you’ll die, and nothing you do will matter that much, but it’s worth making the most of the one life you get.

It’s worth making it more memorable.