Memento Mori

Latin for "Remember that you (have to) die"

Warning: This post talks about death

Memento Mori is a saying that comes up (a lot) in stoic philosophy, it's an interesting concept to remind us of our own mortality by thinking that we might not be here one day...soon it can help us seize the day and not to live in regret.

During my own growth journey, I have and still do struggle with this concept of my own mortality as no one (including me) likes to think about it, we think it's ok I have tomorrow or next year and we never think "maybe I wont". This can then help us get past the fear, fear of rejection, fear of failure, fear of not being liked..... and go "do the thing" that you want to do.

“You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.” - Marcus Aurelius

A thought example for me of the positive aspect of this concept was thinking about a situation where I was worried something I screwed up that day (or bad blog post haha) and that worry then stopped me from engaging with my family when I got home, I was then agitated when I put the kids to bed, didn't give them my full attention and then I died in my sleep, who cares about the thing I screwed up now? definitely not me or them.

Another one is thinking of the some of the greatest building, landmarks or capital cities of any country, the greatest people in that country at that time, household names, designed and built those monuments but who remembers them today? not many, other than people who hold a specialized interest in them or family. This is to remember to not hold weight or dwell over embarrassing moments for years, in the end no one really remembers.

Stephen Covey the author of “7 habits of highly effective people” discusses Habit 2 “Begin with the end in mind” as in your end of life, your own funeral, what would people say about you? Are you happy with what is said? are you happy with the life you lived? Tying this into Memento Mori and the statement from Marcus Aurelius, we don’t know when our own death might happen it could be tomorrow or 40 years from now, all we really have is our actions and time now.

Now with these thought experiments in mind it can show us how we give "trivial" things in life a lot of focus and time worrying about it, when in hindsight anytime spent overly worrying about things out of our control is wasted time, with time our most precious resource. It doesn't mean don't care about anything we just give it the time it deserves and focus on the things that do matter, family, relationships, career or whatever is really important to you.

Now on a more serious note this is about your perspective of what "trivial" matters are, if you are thinking about death in a more negative light, depressive or worse, if you need professional help please seek it, use a helpline, talk to someone and get the help you need.

Enjoy Growth

Mitch