I enjoy a good buffet on occasion. There’s something nice about being able to pick out the food I want, avoid what I don’t want, and choose the portion sizes that work well for me. That buffets are generally self-service and that there are ways to make the most of them are added bonuses. I often wish life were more like that. A life buffet, if you will.
The life buffet I have in mind would be similar to a regular buffet, except that instead of food, your life would be up for the taking. No matter how old you are or how much life you think you have left, imagine that your whole life is laid out in front of you. Everyone you’ve ever met, human or animal, living or dead, is there. Every experience you’ve ever had, every place you’ve ever been, and every version of yourself are all before you. You get to go through it all while deciding what you want to keep and what you want to avoid.
You could approach this in a variety of ways: as if you were designing a life after death that you’d want to live in forever, thinking about how a perfect year on Earth would look for you, designing something you could use to plan your retirement, etc. You might pick the times in life when you were healthiest, felt the most content, had all your loved ones (friends, family members, and animals) in good health and saw them regularly, were financially well off, etc. Similarly, you might avoid the times when you were the unhealthiest, felt the loneliest, were worst off financially, etc. Also, you could retain any lessons you learned during difficult seasons even if you chose to leave those seasons out of your life buffet.
For the general outline, I’d pick 2018, as that was the best year of my adult life. Almost everything in that year was wonderful or was moving in that direction. One of those wonderful things was getting to talk to one or two of my best friends on the phone almost every night. Another amazing feature of that year was how, despite being busy, I still had enough time and money to travel, go to weekend swing dance workshops, buy some nice things for myself and others, and have countless lovely day trips and micro adventures. Additionally, 2018 was the year my work capacity was its greatest: I lifted weights 3 times a week, danced 2-3 times a week, juggled often, and had a physical job that involved moving around heavy appliances. Above all else, my dog Sawyer was still living happily and healthily with me all throughout 2018. Even though I didn’t see him every day due to some traveling, we still spent all but a handful of days together that year.
Speaking of Sawyer, he would be back and better than ever. I’d give him the body he had when he was physically healthiest so that we could do all the fun activities again, like running around the backyard together, going on walks, playing for long periods of time, etc. However, since his health declined over the years as we grew closer together, I would give him the spirit he had when our friendship was strongest. That way he’d get the best of both worlds and we could live together in ways we never could before.
Physically, I’d want my body from when it was the strongest it’s been thus far, my hair from early high school, my beard from either 2019 or early 2022, and my eyesight from back when I was a little kid who didn’t yet need glasses. As for the inner stuff, I’d pick my current emotional intelligence and communication abilities, my indestructible sense of peace that lasted from late August through late September 2021, the memory and intelligence I had prior to a bad head injury in November 2021, and the positive sense of self I had before loads of trauma set in.
For family, I’d have my grandparents when they were all alive and well, and the close family members who’ve consistently treated me well throughout our relationships. As for friends, I’d pick the ones from each phase of my life for whom the relationships were at least good from beginning to end (or which continue to be good, for those friendships that are still going). I’ve had enough experience with abusive humans and have weeded enough of them out of my life over the past few years to know better than to bring any of them back just so they could spoil my life buffet. Only those who’ve been consistently kind to me make the cut.
There are plenty of details I’m omitting, and I might make some changes to the above if I could actually design my life in this way, but this is a good overview of how I’d approach my life buffet. The best times in my life have always been full of wonderful humans, animals, experiences, and things, in addition to having little to no negativity. That’s why I’d go for as much of the good and as little of the bad as possible. How about you? What would you include, and what would you exclude? More importantly, once you’ve got that figured out, how can you modify your current life to better match your ideal life?