The last day of summer

Treat any positive experience as if it is happening for the last time — not morbidly, but to be fully present.

Why it works

A gentler variant: rather than imagining loss explicitly, you hold the awareness that this moment is finite and will not repeat exactly. The psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky and colleagues studied "savoring" — deliberately attending to positive moments — and found it amplifies positive affect. The "last time" framing is a way to activate savoring by making impermanence salient without the sharpness of imagined total loss.

How to do it

1. Choose a pleasant present experience — a meal, a walk, time with someone you love.
2. Quietly note: this exact moment will not come again.
3. Let that awareness slow you down and increase the quality of your attention.
4. Avoid making it sad — the aim is fuller presence, not grief.

Evidence

Savoring research (Lyubomirsky, Bryant and Veroff) finds that deliberately attending to positive experiences amplifies positive affect. Bringing impermanence to mind is one way to activate that attention; the Stoic overlay is philosophical. These researchers are real; these findings are real. (observational)

Savoring effects are modest and variable; some people find mortality-framing destabilizing rather than deepening. Hold the "last time" awareness lightly.

Common mistake

Converting it into anticipated loss — "this will end" becomes "I’m already losing it" — which pulls you out of the present rather than into it. Impermanence is a cue to attend, not to mourn.