Living on borrowed time

Overcoming weak belief

Marcus Aurelius wrote:

Consider yourself to be dead, and to have completed your life up to the present time; and live according to nature the remainder which is allowed you.

Meditations 7.56

Amazing line. If you practice it, the exercise is cleansing. For a time, the mess of ordinary frustrations with the trivial washes away.

There’s a modern idea of the ego: a preoccupation of the self that results in hyperfocus about who we are and our reputation. Well, you can’t take either with you.

Instead, see your life as a gift, a bonus. Something that can end at any moment. If you do, your concerns may be relieved.

If someone encounters a near death experience – or nearly loses a loved one – they often renew their life with extraordinary conviction. Personal change can happen in a matter of days. That’s what the reality of mortality does.

But sadly it fades when we forget that reality. When we become distracted by ordinary vindictive life. Perhaps the sense of urgency will return, but there’s no guarantee.

So many of the reminders Marcus Aurelius writes to himself aim to combat this natural tendency towards complacency. That’s why he reminds himself of death so often.

At one level, we know life is short. But our belief is what Epictetus would call weak. It’s not fully internalized. It’s not strong enough to drive our day-to-day behavior. At least, not for many of us.

But with effort we can change that. Memento mori.

When a man has said: "I have lived!", every morning he arises he receives a bonus.

Moral Letters 12