If This Were Your Only Life, How Would You Choose to Play It?
Katie Ruffino, PA-C, NLP Master Practitioner, and founder of Pure Pathways Collective, merges medicine, mindset, and artistry to inspire holistic transformation. Known for her work in detoxification, subconscious rewiring, and her Katie in the Kitchen series, she helps leaders embody health, vitality, and authentic self-expression.
If you knew you only had one life, how would you choose to live it? Would you go all out and take greater risks for the possibility of greater reward, knowing you would rather live fully than cautiously? Or would you play it safer and “smarter” because you wanted to get your one chance right?
I would assume that most people, if they knew this was their only shot, would choose to live life to the fullest. Why else would they be here other than to actually live?
Yet, I could make the opposite argument just as easily. If someone believed this was their only life, perhaps they would become more careful. With no second chance, every major decision could feel heavier. They might take fewer risks because there would be no opportunity to come back and try again.
I might also assume that someone who believes in reincarnation would live more daringly. If this is one of many lifetimes, perhaps there is less pressure to make every move perfectly. Then again, believing there will be another life could make it easier to postpone fully inhabiting this one.
Arguments can be made for every side, and there may not be one right or wrong way at all.
So let us take the question further.
What if you knew, without question, that this was your only chance at life?
Meaning, there’s no endless series of incarnations, no practice rounds, and not even an experience you could revisit in another body, another place, or another time.
Knowing that, would you finally write the book, leave the job, take the trip, say what you mean, or choose the life you secretly want? Or would it make you even more afraid to choose? Many people already believe they only live once and still spend years waiting for certainty, confidence, or permission. Meanwhile, believing we may return can free us to experiment or tempt us to assume there will always be another chance.
But that belief contains its own temptation, the illusion that there will always be another chance.
So which belief helps us live more fully? Perhaps neither, unless it brings us back into this life.
Here’s what the research can and cannot tell us
I was curious whether research might reveal a clear relationship between beliefs about the afterlife and a person’s willingness to take risks. The evidence was less conclusive than my assumptions.
One study using data from Danish twins initially found an association between risk attitudes and religious behavior among people who believed in an afterlife, but it was no longer statistically significant after a stronger twin pair analysis. The study did not directly compare reincarnation with belief in one life or show that either belief causes courage or caution.
That ambiguity may be the more interesting finding for our purposes. A belief system does not automatically determine how a person will play the game. The same belief can become an invitation into freedom or a reason to remain afraid. So what actually influences how you choose to live the most? (We’ll come back to that in another article.)
When one life becomes too much pressure
There is something clarifying about remembering that our time here is limited. The awareness of death can strip away the trivial and reveal what matters. It can remind us that there are conversations we need to have, dreams we keep postponing, and parts of ourselves we no longer want to abandon.
But “you only live once” can also become an impossible assignment. Get it right. Choose the perfect career. Find the perfect partner. Live in the right place. Fulfill your purpose. Do not waste time. Do not make a mistake you cannot undo.
Suddenly, life stops feeling like something we are living and starts feeling like something we are being graded on.
We can become so determined not to waste our one life that we waste years analyzing how to live it. We stay in what is familiar because a known discomfort feels less frightening than an unknown outcome. We call it responsibility, patience, or waiting for the right time, but sometimes, beneath all of that, we are simply afraid.
The desire to make your life count can quietly become the fear that keeps you from participating in it.
When endless chances become another way to wait
The possibility that we may live more than once offers a very different kind of comfort. It can loosen our grip on perfection. It can allow us to see life as a place of learning rather than a test we either pass or fail.
Maybe we did not come here to execute a flawless plan. Maybe we came here to experience, create, love, lose, discover, remember, and grow.
I find freedom in that perspective. When life is not an exam, a wrong turn does not have to mean I failed. It may simply reveal something I could not have learned by standing still.
Yet even a freeing belief can become a hiding place. If we assume the soul has endless opportunities, it may become easier to postpone the courage required now. We can tell ourselves there will be another season, another version of us, perhaps even another lifetime in which we finally become who we sense we are meant to be.
Whether or not we receive another lifetime, “later” remains one of the most convincing stories we tell ourselves in this one. Realize that if you never take the steps out of fear of failure, then you’ve already failed. Failure is not defined by the outcome, but rather by never trying.
I was trying to figure out my life before living it
I know what it feels like to search for the choice that will finally make everything make sense. For years, medicine represented security, credibility, and proof that I was on the right path. I had invested time, money, education, and so much of my identity into becoming a physician assistant. Leaving was not simply a career decision. It asked me to question who I was without the role I had worked so hard to earn.
Part of me wanted a guarantee that choosing differently would lead to something better. I wanted to know that if I released the life that looked responsible, the next one would immediately validate the decision. I wanted certainty before I moved. But life rarely offers proof in advance.
Eventually, I had to confront a more honest question, "Was I staying because this life still felt true, or because I was afraid of being wrong?" I began to recognize that remaining in a life that no longer felt like mine was not the absence of a decision. It was a decision I was making every day.
I was treating my life like something I needed to figure out before I was allowed to live it. Leaving did not give me immediate certainty about every step that would follow. It gave me something more useful, the opportunity to meet myself through the choice. I could receive feedback, adjust, learn, and choose again. My path did not need to be perfectly planned to be authentically mine.
That experience changed what it means to take life seriously. Taking my life seriously does not mean demanding that I never make a mistake. It means taking responsibility for participating in it.
What if life is a game?
Calling life a game can sound dismissive, as if our choices and losses do not matter. But think about how we actually play a meaningful game. We commit. We pay attention. We develop skills. We encounter obstacles. We make decisions without knowing exactly how they will unfold. Sometimes the outcome is what we hoped for, and sometimes the entire strategy has to change.
The game matters while we are playing it, but one move does not determine our worth.
The concept of failure is also often mistaken. What is failure, even? Is it simply not reaching the outcome one originally named, or is it discovering an approach that didn’t work? Is it giving up, or is failure itself largely a meaning we assign after the fact?
This reminds me of a hike I recently did in Ogden, Utah. I got tired around 90% of the way up to the top of Taylor Canyon and considered stopping. If I had turned around at that point, I might’ve labeled that as a failure if my intention was to reach the top. But that label would not have been appropriate if my intention was to simply enjoy the hike, move my body, and explore new terrain.
This is why intention matters. We often judge our lives by a finish line without asking what we actually came to experience along the way. Worse, many people decide they have failed before failure is even possible. They take three steps on a 20-step staircase, do not see the outcome yet, and interpret the incomplete process as proof that they cannot succeed.
There is a foundational principle in Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP). There is no failure, only feedback. If something does not unfold the way we hoped, we have not received a final verdict about who we are. We have received information. We can adjust, continue, or consciously choose a new direction.
Children understand this instinctively. They can become completely absorbed in play without needing the experience to prove who they are. They experiment, imagine, and respond to what happens. When the rules no longer work, they create new ones.
Many adults have forgotten how to live this way. We confuse seriousness with significance. We assume that if something matters, we must approach it with tension, control, and fear. But what if devotion and play belong together?
What if we could care deeply without gripping so tightly? What if we could commit to what feels true while remaining flexible about how it unfolds? What if changing direction did not mean the previous choice was a waste, but that it gave us the information required for the next one?
Maybe life is meant to be played lightly, but lived wholeheartedly.
Playing to live instead of playing not to lose
There is a difference between playing to live and playing not to lose. When we play not to lose, our choices revolve around avoiding embarrassment, rejection, regret, and uncertainty. We may look responsible from the outside while slowly disconnecting from ourselves.
We outsource decisions and wait for someone else to approve the life we already know we want. We stay close to what is safe, even when safe has become small.
Sometimes we follow someone else’s blueprint because their results appear to offer certainty. We may even recreate their success, and still feel strangely unfulfilled. Their path worked for their life, intentions, and values, but it may not express our own authentic signature.
The point is to notice when we are using someone else’s path as guidance and when we are using it to avoid creating a life of our own.
When we play to live, we are still thoughtful. We consider consequences and honor our responsibilities. But fear is no longer the only voice allowed to make decisions.
We listen to what creates aliveness. We become willing to disappoint an outdated version of ourselves, and we let life give us feedback rather than demanding that it give us guarantees. Success then becomes more than arriving at a particular destination. It includes who we become, what we discover, and whether we were actually present enough to enjoy the journey.
When joy exists only at the finish line, we can spend most of our lives waiting to receive the fruit. Play allows us to experience some of that fruit now.
This is not an invitation to make reckless choices. It is an invitation to notice whether caution is protecting something meaningful, or protecting you from being fully seen in your own life.
Two questions that may change how you play
Take a few quiet minutes and answer these questions without trying to sound wise, spiritual, or practical:
If this were my only lifetime, what would I stop postponing?
If life were a game I was allowed to learn through, what would I stop taking so painfully seriously?
Then ask, "What choice becomes possible when I hold both answers at once?"
Perhaps one answer reveals where you have been withholding yourself. The other may reveal where perfectionism has made life heavier than it needs to be.
You may not need to quit your job, end a relationship, or reinvent your entire life tomorrow. The next move could be much smaller, have the conversation, submit the application, rest without earning it first, create something imperfectly, or admit what you want.
Small choices teach us that we can trust ourselves inside the unknown.
This version of you is here now
I do not know whether we receive one lifetime or many. I have beliefs, questions, and moments of deep spiritual knowing, but I do not need absolute certainty about what comes after this life to decide how I want to meet the one in front of me.
This version of me, in this body, surrounded by these people, and presented with these particular choices, will never exist in exactly this way again. The same is true for you.
Maybe that is enough reason to be here fully.
Play. Experiment. Change your mind. Let yourself learn. Care deeply. Love people while they are here. Choose what feels true, and allow life to refine you along the way.
Do not confuse holding life lightly with withholding yourself from it.
You do not have to get this life perfectly right. You do have to be willing to live it.
To learn more, check out my website here.
Read more from Catherine (Katie) Ruffino
Catherine (Katie) Ruffino, NLP Master Practitioner
Katie Ruffino, PA-C, NLP Master Practitioner, and founder of Pure Pathways Collective, is a recognized voice in functional and regenerative medicine. She helps leaders and entrepreneurs achieve holistic transformation through detoxification, nervous system regulation, and subconscious rewiring. Her work emphasizes emotional release and deep reconnection to the self, creating space for clarity, vitality, and freedom. Drawing from her medical background and her passion for creativity, Katie also created the Katie in the Kitchen series, where she shares stories, interviews, and lessons on authentic living. Her mission is to help others enhance their human experience, living in alignment with their truth.
