The Worst-Case Scenario Isn’t Hell · The Fatherhood Framework

The Worst-Case Scenario Isn’t Hell

Lately, I’ve been thinking about the end of my journey here.

Not in a dark or morbid way, but in the way you think about the end of a journey when you’ve reached the end of others before. I’ve finished contracts. Finished life on ships. Finished college. Finished living in the country I grew up in. I know what endings feel like.

What’s interesting is that most endings aren’t as final as they seem. There’s often a way back. Sometimes I’ve gone back. Sometimes I haven’t. But endings still force a reckoning.

That’s what this is.

When people talk about worst-case scenarios after death, they usually jump straight to hell. Fire, brimstone, endless suffering, eternal punishment. Strangely enough, that doesn’t scare me as much as it probably should. There’s something almost workable about it. You could prepare for suffering. You could build mental toughness, discipline, endurance. You could learn how to carry weight without reward.

I’m not defending hell, but I understand it.

What scares me more is something quieter.

Imagine being sat down at the end of your life and shown a highlight reel. Not a judgment. Just a record. Your life, as lived. And as you watch it, the overwhelming feeling isn’t horror or pain, but disappointment.

That’s it?

That I spent my time chasing easy pleasures. Sitting on the couch. Avoiding discomfort. Numbing myself. Ignoring things I knew mattered. And now it’s over, and there’s no fixing it. No tools left. No strength to summon. No second attempt.

That, to me, feels like the real worst-case scenario.

The ancient Stoics had a phrase for this. Memento mori. Remember, you must die. Marcus Aurelius didn’t mean this as a threat. He meant it as a lens. Let the fact of death shape how you live, how you choose, how you act today.

And if I’m honest, I haven’t been doing that.

Somewhere along the way, I started conflating pleasure with reward. Comfort with meaning. Relief with progress. And they are not the same thing.

Pleasure isn’t evil. It isn’t the problem. The problem is unchosen pleasure, the kind you fall into when you’re under-aimed. When you don’t know what you’re moving toward, your nervous system grabs whatever makes the moment quieter.

Reward is different. Reward comes after effort. After choosing something difficult on purpose. After carrying responsibility. After doing work that didn’t have to be done, but was worth doing anyway.

The Stoics weren’t anti-pleasure. They were anti-drift.

And drift is dangerous, especially for capable people. When you know you can do more but don’t choose to, the gap fills with distraction. Not because you’re weak, but because humans can’t live without something that feels meaningful.

This is where the thought experiment becomes useful.

If that screen really did exist at the end, what moments would make me lean forward? Which ones would embarrass me to explain? Not shame. Embarrassment is more honest. It reveals where I knew better and chose easier.

The goal isn’t to live joylessly. It’s to live deliberately.

You don’t need to overhaul your entire life to fix this. You need one daily act that cannot be mistaken for pleasure. Something small, but undeniable. Writing when you don’t feel like it. Training past comfort. Creating instead of consuming. Telling the truth instead of staying quiet.

Not forever. Just today.

Because the final question won’t be whether you suffered enough or enjoyed yourself enough. It will be simpler than that.

Did you live like someone who knew time was limited?

I do know.

And if you’re reading this and nodding along, maybe you do too.

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