There is a silent burden of the truth stinging behind our eyes that we sometimes are unaware of, that everything we do will one day be for the last time. Sometimes this acceptance comes later than the moment ends, and sometimes we are fully aware of it as we live through it.
One day you are bound to close the door of your childhood room that still smells faintly of playdough and amusement. One day you will meet your friends in your classroom before everyone has to go their separate ways without realising that this will be the last time.
And one day you will sit beside your grandparent listening to them tell the same story over again for maybe the last time.
The last-time theory is not about letting fear consume you about it ending. But it is about understanding that every moment we live is temporary, even if we don’t want it to be, so we should cherish them all.
Human beings become accustomed to familiarity psychologically. This process is commonly referred to as ‘hedonic adaptation’, and repeated experiences gradually become less special. Eating dinner with a family turns into an ordinary event. The motivation to work becomes background noise. The existence of people who are loved is assumed but not appreciated.
But the assumption is the last thing theory interferes with.
This consciousness is capable of intensifying gratitude. When you come to a halt in a mundane moment — at the dinner table, listening to your sibling squabble over some minor thing, as you look on as your mother cooks — that moment becomes more intense. It becomes richer. Not because it is dramatic, but because it is delicate.
The theory does not imply that one lives in fear of losing. Rather, it promotes attendance. In case this is your last car ride with a friend, would you scroll on your phone? Would you complain about the heat on this last family vacation? And when this is the final occasion when your child requests that you be carried, then would you say you are too tired?
In many cases, we defer appreciation. We presume more opportunities of saying thank you, apologising, and showing love. Sometimes there are. Sometimes there aren’t.
The realisation that any experience might be the last one welcomes deliberateness. It urges us to make arguments softer. To speak kindly. To record memories, not to post on social media, but for ourselves. To allow sufficient time to embrace each other.
In this perspective, there is also empowerment. In case there is the final moment of painful chapters, hard times are transient as well. The day will come when you will cry because of a heartbreak. The final moment when you have a problem with a certain fear. The final moment when you are trapped in a kind of person you are no longer. Sufferings, just as much as joys, have their ends.
Theory also reformulates regret at the last time. We always wish that when something finishes, we knew that it was the end. But maybe not predetermining finiteness is the point — it is to live so that, when the end turns up, we are there and not cat-eyed.
It is not necessary to make great things out of small ones to find value in every moment. During conversations, it is made in eye contact. It is listening in a hurry. It is in pleasing the palate rather than multitasking. It is rather in the decision to be patient instead of getting irritated.
Life hardly declares its conclusions. No background music: there is an indication of the final scene. The majority of endings are silent and unobserved. And that is precisely why awareness is important.
The final lesson to learn in theory is simple, yet strong: treat the ordinary as something sacred. Because one day, it will become a memory.
And when that end is finally reached — whenever it is — can we look back and say that we were there, that we lived all the way through, in every moment worth living?