Last night, as I set out on the typical walk back to my apartment from campus, my phone battery was at a whopping 13 percent. This meant that I had plenty of power left for some Spotify on the relatively short walk, so I dug into my pocket, grabbed my headphones, and started playing whatever it was that I had last been listening to.

I was halfway back to my apartment when I heard the all too familiar ding of an incoming text message ring through my earbuds and interrupt the music. I looked down, noticed my phone was still at a healthy 9 percent, opened up the message, and started replying. However, in the middle of my message, the screen turned black, completely devoid of life. Instead of staring at a white screen filled with text messages, I was looking at a reflection of myself, and in this singular moment I had an epiphany. Instead of just seeing myself on the phone, I saw myself in it.

I saw my life in the same capacity that I look at the “life” of my phone-dependent on a battery. This, in and of itself, is not a novel idea, as we are generally reminded that our elderly loved ones are running out of time. However, it is scarce that we consider our batteries or someone’s that we love could run out before our preconceived “time” is up.

This realization struck harder than a sledge hammer and resonated within me more than a choir of voices singing carpe diem. See, we all agree in knowing that life is short, but to me that seems like just another thing that people casually mention without truly believing. For me, it took this singular moment to realize my brevity. It took this instance for me to understand that my mortality could come much sooner than I am anticipating.

I’ll be honest, for a moment, I was terrified looking at my inevitable death in such a frank way, but then I became frightened for a different reason. I became worried that I may be wasting my life. Right now, I am 20, and the average male life expectancy in the U.S. is just under 79; my battery seems to be at a flourishing 74 percent. Yet, this may not be the case. For all I know, my battery may already be at 5 percent. If that is the case, then every single day becomes innumerably more important than when my battery is at 75 percent.

Each wasted day has a minuscule impact pn a potentially long life, but if your life is short—if your battery is at a much lower percent than you have anticipated—then that once-minuscule wasted day becomes a monumental loss. I do not want that to be my life. I do not want to be so busy looking toward a future that may not come that I forget to revel in the present.

I want to live my life like I am fervently texting something important as my phone is my two percent. I want to go through each day knowing that it could be one of my last, enjoying the opportunity it presents. I want to make sure that when my battery finally runs out, that it does so because it was exhausted, and not because it was sitting on a shelf somewhere.