One Year To Live.
It is not a thought experiment. It is the only question that matters.
What if you knew, with absolute certainty, that you had exactly one year left to live? Not one year until sickness or decay. One year of full health, full capacity. 365 days to do, be, and create everything of consequence you were ever meant to.
What would you do?
The question is a scalpel. It cuts away the trivial, the obligations, the fears. It slices through the comfortable lies you tell yourself. It exposes the vast, tragic gap between the life you are living and the life that is waiting for you.
We are all terminal. This is the one truth we are given. Yet we live in a state of perpetual denial, trading our finite, precious days for the illusion of "someday." We defer our dreams, silence our truths, and anesthetize ourselves with distraction, all under the delusion that we have infinite time.
This is a rejection of that delusion.
"The fear of death is not a fear of the end. It is a fear of a life unlived. A fear of reaching the final day with a heart full of regret for the risks not taken, the words not spoken, and the man you were capable of being."
The One-Year Protocol: A Framework for Urgency
1. The Great Audit: What Do You Burn?
The first act of a man with one year to live is subtraction. He does not add; he purges. What would you stop doing, effective immediately? Which meetings would you decline? Which draining relationships would you sever? Which comfortable lies would you cease to entertain? You must be ruthless. Your time is now a currency more valuable than gold. Do not spend it on anything that does not serve your mission.
2. The Action Mandate: What Do You Build?
With the dead wood cleared, you are left with a stark and beautiful clarity. What is the work you were put here to do? What is the adventure that calls to you? What is the legacy you will forge in the time you have left? This is not a bucket list. It is a mission plan. It requires the tactical precision of the Quick Win and the courage to embrace the Five Mistakes as the price of admission.
3. The Final Conversation: What Truth Do You Speak?
A life of regret is paved with unspoken truths. Who do you need to forgive? Who do you need to thank? What do you need to say to your children, your parents, your allies? The man with one year to live has no time for the petty grievances and unspoken affections that poison the soul. He operates from a place of radical honesty and active gratitude, the very core of The Gratitude Revolution.
The Podcast is Coming.
The "One Year To Live" podcast is an ongoing exploration of this question. It is a collection of conversations with men who are in the arena, living with urgency, and building lives of consequence. It is a tactical manual and a philosophical journey.
Coming Soon.
About The Author
I'm Clinton Wasylishen. I don't treat this question as a thought experiment. I treat it as my operating system. It's what led me to leave a conventional life behind, to build my businesses from Costa Rica, and to raise my sons with a focus on presence over possessions. It is the filter through which I make every decision. This entire ecosystem of ideas is the result of asking that one, simple, terrifying question, every single day.
The Toolkit for Your One Year
This is the 'why'. The following are the 'how'.