_{Benoit Malige}

My grandma moved into a retirement home. So I’m packing her boxes. Something shines. I pick it up; I rub it, and poof. 🌬️

The genie pops out, stares at me with eyes like burning coals. “One wish,” he says. “Anything you want.”

I don’t even hesitate. “I want to live forever.”

He smirks. He looks at me as if I made a mistake:

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Me: “Yes god damnit. Who wouldn’t want that?”

He nods, snaps his fingers, and just like that... I am eternal.

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JOURNAL ENTRIES

Day 1: October 30th, 2024

Mood: Ecstatic
I am eternal. Just saying it feels wild. No need to rush, no need to worry about “running out of time.”

I celebrated by doing absolutely nothing for a few hours. Pure freedom.

Then, I started a list of all the things I’ll finally have time to do… Learn every language, read every classic novel, visit every country.

This is going to be epic.

Day 7: November 6th, 2024

Mood: Still pumped
I went skydiving. Twice. Why not? When you have all the time in the world, you start looking at everything as an experiment.

Every experience is available to me, no need to weigh pros and cons. I spent the afternoon planning my “eternal bucket list,” and it’s filling up fast.

No more FOMO.

Month 3: January 2025

Mood: Curious but… maybe a little restless
Visited 15 countries.

Tried every extreme sport I could find.

Learned conversational Japanese (嫌な予感 が する…). But here’s a weird thought: things don’t feel as urgent.

Year 5: October 2029

Mood: Bored, if I’m being honest
I’ve done everything. Twice.

The thrill of “trying new things” is wearing thin. I mean, it’s still fun, but… there’s no urgency.

I’ve read every book on my shelf, watched every classic film, climbed the tallest mountains, and scuba-dived in the deepest oceans.

Strangely, I miss deadlines.

Year 100: 2124

Mood: Desperately craving an end
Fuuuuck me.

I get it now.

I can practically see that damn smirk on the genie’s face. He knew all along.

Life isn’t precious because it goes on forever; it’s precious because it doesn’t. The weight of this hits like a ton of bricks—too late to go back, too late to choose differently.

If I had known… if I’d understood then what I know now, I would’ve focused on the things that actually mean something—the people, the fleeting, messy moments, the things that make life feel whole, even when it’s painfully short. Forever isn’t a gift; it’s a curse. The real beauty of life? It’s that we don’t have enough of it.

But I’m stuck here, endlessly watching sunsets, endlessly waiting… and I finally understand.

Year 1000: 3124

Mood: Trapped in eternity
I have outlived everything worth living for.
No end, no escape—just endless, empty time.

Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

—

Why is a good question. Why don’t we feel the urgency to do what truly matters?

It’s like we’re all acting like we have forever, but never stopping to ask what that would actually mean.

Think about it.

People say they’ll start tomorrow, or next week, or “when things slow down.” But if you lived forever, there’d always be another tomorrow.

Nothing would ever need to happen now.

And it’s funny, right? We already fall into this trap.

Look around.

You see it—friends, family, even yourself, pushing things off like there’s an endless supply of tomorrows.

Procrastination: The Forever Trap

Every time you say, “I’ll do it later,” you’re betting that you’ll always have more time. Imagine that mindset with an eternity. You’d keep pushing things off, waiting for some “perfect time” that never arrives.

And then, you’d be stuck in an endless cycle, putting off the things that actually matter, because there’s always later.

And here’s the irony: we’re not procrastinating because we actually have forever; we’re procrastinating because we’re afraid.

• Afraid of messing up
• Afraid of failing
• Afraid of feeling too much too soon.

Forever gives you the illusion that there’s no urgency, but it’s the finiteness of life that gives meaning to every action.

The Planners and the Risk Avoiders

Then there are the planners—mapping out every detail but never hitting ‘send.’ And the risk avoiders, waiting for the “right time” or “right feeling” to step out of their comfort zones.

If you had forever, you’d just keep waiting, wouldn’t you?

Safe, but never fully alive.

Here’s what I’ve realized: it’s the decision to act within limits that brings the clarity and power to make things real.

The ticking clock forces us to be honest about what we truly want to do—and what we’re just afraid to let go of.

The fear of death isn’t just about a fear of “not existing.” It’s also a fear of leaving things undone, of not truly living while we’re here.

The Paradox of Choice: Doing It All vs. Doing What Matters

Imagine if you really tried to do everything.

Every hobby, every skill, every destination on the planet. Eventually, you’d end up in an endless loop of trying to keep yourself entertained.

You know that feeling when you scroll through Netflix for an hour because you could watch anything, and somehow end up watching nothing?

Now picture that on a cosmic scale.

Living forever would be the ultimate Netflix paralysis—an endless list of options with no urgency to pick one.

When nothing is urgent, nothing feels meaningful.

The beauty of life—the thing that makes it feel so damn precious—is that we don’t get to do it all.

We have to make choices.

Prioritize.

And those choices? That’s where the meaning is.

So why don’t we feel the urgency to do what truly matters?

It’s like we’re pretending we’ll live forever, never stopping to ask ourselves what that would actually mean.

You act as if time is endless, yet don’t treat it like the gift it is. You take it for granted, half-living, stuck in routines, assuming we have all the time in the world—until you don’t.

(speaking for myself here).

So here’s the question that started spinning in my head: If I had all the time in the world—literally—what would I actually do?

Sometimes, thinking about life from a completely different angle is the only way to see what’s really important.

After all,

‍“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”

So I thought, why not flip the script entirely? Why not imagine what life would look like if I had infinite time?

And see what I’d actually end up doing if there were no ticking clock.

At first, the answer seemed obvious: I’d do everything.

• Explore every country
• Learn every language
• Master every skill.

Imagine the freedom of knowing you’ll never run out of time. No rush, no pressure. Just endless opportunities.

But then I dug a little deeper. And the idea of eternity… it started to lose its appeal.

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The Gift of Limits.

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And that’s the real gift, isn’t it? We don’t live forever. We have limits, and they force us to make choices. Every hour, every day, every experience matters more because there’s not an endless supply.

But maybe it’s more than that. Maybe limits don’t just force us to make choices—they define what we even desire.

Think about it:

• Would anything hold value if it were endless?
• Would anything feel precious if there were no possibility of losing it?

In a strange way, it’s our limitations that create the desire to begin with. Imagine wanting something for eternity.

The wanting itself would lose its spark, wouldn’t it?

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The ticking clock doesn’t just create urgency—it gives us clarity. It reveals what we’re actually willing to fight for, sacrifice for, love fiercely enough to choose over all else.

It’s the “no” that makes the “yes” matter.

What if the ultimate purpose of limits isn’t just to make life precious, but to strip away everything unnecessary, leaving us only with what we’d die for—or live for?

If we had forever, there’d be no need to wrestle with questions like this, no need to ask what’s worth our time, our effort, our love.

But because we don’t, every choice we make is a declaration of what we believe is worth it.

So maybe the real gift of limits is that they don’t just end our time—they shape it.

They’re the sculptors of our priorities, carving away everything that doesn’t matter until we’re left with something we can hold up and say, this is my life.

Until next time… perhaps.

Benoit

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