"Today is the first day of the rest of your life"
"Live as if this was your last day on earth."

I reject the pervasiveness of those kind of imperatives. To live as if you're going to die tomorrow is to live with an unecessarily heightened sense of urgency, which translates into anxiety, which translates into a false motivation.

Jon Stewart, in his commencement address at The College of William & Mary said "College is something you complete; life is something you experience." I constantly encounter people who treat what they're doing as if it's some pitched battle to end all battles, when only it is some point along an infinite chain of crises representing permanent war.

The idea of permanent war is something that Orwell talked about heavily. Bush is very much an "End of Times man" (as is Tony Blair), living as if we're on the doorsteps of Armageddon. This false sense of urgency is exploited, leading us down rabbit holes.