A couple of years ago, I watched The Good Place, and I was inspired to think about the many things I might do if I had infinite time in the afterlife to spend on whatever activities I want. In fact, I had been fantasizing about what I might do in heaven ever since I was introduced to the idea of it. But the show got me thinking again.

Broadly speaking, I don’t have that clear of a picture in mind for what I expect from an afterlife. But there had better be one, and it had better give me infinite time, because, well…I have a lot I want to do, and one lifetime isn’t nearly enough to do it all. It just wouldn’t be fair if I didn’t get more time to make it through the list.

Of course, I’m interested in all the typical stuff you’d expect, like reconnecting with my loved ones who pass before me, seeing if there is or ever was other life in the universe, and finding out what’s really going on in the Bermuda Triangle (pretty sure it’s Charybdis). But there’s also a myriad of less conventional goals that I have in mind. Here’s just a few of them:

• See my stats.

One of the first things I’d like to do is peel back the curtain a bit on some of the raw numbers I achieved in my life in various categories. I’d love to see how many drinks I made in my entire barista career, how many total words I typed or wrote, how many miles I walked since the beginning of my life if you count every single step—stuff like that. I don’t think I’d do anything with these numbers, just sort of admire them. But I think that sounds fun.

• Learn to play the trumpet.

In this lifetime, I’ve spent a lot of hours already learning how to play the saxophone, and I’d like to spend more doing that, eventually. But I also have a half-decent head start on a few other instruments as well—piano, guitar, flute—and those would take priority if I want to branch out a bit. Unfortunately for me, developing mastery of an instrument is a deeply gratifying and soul-nourishing experience, and I would simply like to learn all of them. After those top four, I think trumpet would be next in line. Maybe cello after that.

• Play tetherball.

Similarly to instruments, there are a lot of games and sports that would be extremely fun to put a lot of hours into and see myself improve at, but that might be difficult to get access to in this lifetime. Ping pong is one I could see happening, with some luck. But tetherball is another that comes to mind—back in the seventh grade I spent most of my lunch breaks playing tetherball, and in eighth grade it was ping pong. I was competitive about these games, and I’d love to pick up where I left off, maybe even with some of the same opponents I had back then. For tetherball, though, I don’t think they make adult-sides versions of the game. Surely they do in the afterlife, right?

• Play volleyball

I’m putting team sports in its own category here because it feels different from the individual sports in terms of what I’m getting out of it. I played some soccer in my youth, but that’s about it, and I’d love to revisit the experience: being invested in a sport with a team, scoping out the season’s matches, practicing together and finding where you fit in best, the whole deal. Is volleyball first on the list exclusively because I watched Haikyuu!! years ago? Yes. Do I feel self-conscious about that being the reason? No, that show is awesome. Also, badminton would come next.

• Eat cilantro

Pretty self-explanatory. I have the cilantro soap gene, yes. And I’d love to taste what it’s supposed to taste like. 

• Play World of Warcraft

This one’s a bit tricky. I know I could download the game right now and start playing, or even start on a server that replicates what the game used to be like years ago. But what I really want is to play WoW in its heyday. My MMO of choice was Wizard 101, which I loved for what it was, but I do feel like I missed out on the iconic experience that many of my friends had in their adolescence with WoW. If some new MMO came out, and by some miracle I had the free time to put a few hours a day into it, that could probably scratch this same itch. But I’m not holding my breath for that to happen.

• Learn languages.

I never enjoyed my Spanish classes in high school all that much, but I did enjoy the actual learning of a language, and I think I would have a lot of fun doing that again. Maybe not starting with Spanish, but with, say, Welsh or Japanese or Arabic. Again, though, actually gaining fluency in a language takes a serious time commitment, and it’s unlikely I’ll be able to fit that in during this life the way I would want.

Ultimately, I guess what really appeals to me is not having to choose. Some of these things are impossible to do without special afterlife powers, but for a lot of them, time is really the only constraint. I know that in one lifetime I can’t get around to everything I want to do, which means I have to choose what I prioritize and choose what I leave for later—later being the afterlife, I guess. I hope.

But framing it this way makes it sound like I hate making those choices, and I’m not sure that’s true either. Even if I assume that the afterlife gives me the opportunity to do all those things I want to do, it’ll probably be a while before I find out. I can sit around and fantasize about having infinite time to do everything I want, or…I can keep choosing, like I’ve been doing my whole life. That, at least, is an easy choice.

Philip Rienstra

Phil Rienstra (they/he) (‘21) studied writing and music, and since graduating has developed a deep interest in labor rights. They currently work at a unionized Starbucks and volunteer with Starbucks Workers United. They’re an amateur chef, a perennial bandana wearer, and an Enneagram 4. He lives in St. Paul with his spouse, Heidi.