Having already died

"C’est ainsi depuis l’enfance: devoir qui n’est pas fait, leçon qu’on n’a pas eu le temps d’apprendre, et ainsi jusqu’à l’heure de notre mort, où nous nous présenterons les mains vides, torturés de regrets abominables". Alain Fournier

I'm a bit last minute about things. I rush things up at the eleventh hour and so far, luckily, there has been no major disaster. I still manage to get things done. There’s one thing, however, which I do not want to leave to the last minute and which I do not want to delay for another month or another year. I want to have already died so there will be extra-time, so that my time on Earth can be a bonus, a second chance to do all the things I wish I’d done before. For now I’m just trying to figure out the things I would wish to have done differently if I were to die today. That way, maybe I'll still be able to squeeze some of them in.

I read somewhere that in some ancient traditions when they baptized you they almost killed you. They maintained your head under the water for a while. They asked you to be quite serious about your repentance and your faith before you got in the water because otherwise, as the process pushed you to the limit, you might despair, give up hope and inhale water. They got you practically dead, to the point when you’re so vulnerable that you get a glimpse of the divine. Then they pulled you back up, and sent you back into the world, still shaking, on your bonus time.