Hi,
I'm Mark.
And if you've watched my other videos or done any of my courses here on Insight Timer,
You'll know that I teach stoicism.
And today I want to talk about the part of it that people find hardest to hear,
But it's the part that I actually think is the most important.
Now stay with me,
I promise this isn't gonna get depressing.
If anything,
It's the opposite.
This is the practice that changed my relationship with time more than anything else.
It's called memento mori,
Two Latin words that mean remember you will die.
So let's start with where it comes from,
Because the actual origin tells you everything you need to know about what it's for.
So in ancient Rome,
When a general won a great battle,
He'd be paraded through the streets in a massive triumph.
So there'd be crowds cheering,
The whole city celebrating him like a god.
And standing behind him in the chariot,
Whispering in his ear the entire time,
Was a slave.
And his one job was to keep repeating a single phrase into the ear of the most celebrated man in Rome.
Memento mori.
Remember,
You will die.
So think about that for a second.
At the exact moment this man is at the absolute peak of human achievement,
Someone is reminding him he's going to end up in the ground like everyone else.
Now that could sound cruel.
It's not,
It's a gift.
Because it stops the wind going to his head.
It keeps him human.
It reminds him that all of this,
The glory,
The crowd,
The power,
Is temporary.
So he'd better not waste it being arrogant or cruel or asleep to what actually matters.
That right there is the whole practice.
Marcus Aurelius,
The Roman emperor,
Used to write this to himself every morning as a kind of rehearsal.
He said,
You could leave life right now.
Let that determine what you do and say and think.
He wasn't being dramatic.
He was starting his day by genuinely accepting that it might be his last,
So that he wouldn't waste it on things that didn't deserve his attention.
Seneca,
Another Stoic,
He put it even more bluntly.
He said it's not that we have a short life,
It's that we waste a lot of it.
We treat time like it's the one infinite resource we own,
When actually it's the one thing none of us can get more of,
No matter how much money or power or clever thinking that we throw at it.
So here's the misconception I really want to clear up because I think it's the reason this idea gets pushed away before people even give it a chance.
People here remember you will die and they assume it means dwelling on death being morbid,
Living in fear.
But it's the exact opposite of that.
Memento Mori isn't about fearing death.
It's about using death to wake up to life.
It's a mirror you hold up to your actual ordinary Tuesday,
And it asks you one honest question.
If this were near the end,
Would you still be spending your time this way?
Would you still be holding that grudge?
Would you still be putting off the phone call,
The apology?
The trip,
The creative thing you keep saying you'll start someday.
Would you still be sitting on words you haven't said to the people you love,
Assuming there's always going to be more time to say them?
Because here's the truth.
Underneath all of this,
And it's not a comfortable one,
None of us actually know how much time we have.
We just live as if we do.
We save the good China for someday.
We wait to be happy until things are perfect.
We assume the people we love will simply always be there right up until one day they're not.
Memento Mori doesn't add fear to that reality.
The fear was already there,
Quietly,
Underneath everything.
What this practice does is take that fear and turn it into fuel,
Into clarity,
Into presence.
It's the boundary that gives your life its shape.
The same way the edge of a photograph is what makes the picture mean something,
Rather than just being an endless,
Meaningless blur.
I'll be honest with you,
This is the part of Stoicism I come back to the most,
Especially on the days I catch myself sleepwalking,
Rushing through a conversation because I'm thinking about something else,
Getting genuinely worked up over something that,
If I'm honest,
Won't matter to me in a year,
Let alone on my last day.
So here's something I want you to actually do right now before you go back to your day.
Think of one thing that's been quietly weighing on you.
A grudge,
A worry,
A conversation you've been avoiding.
Something you keep telling yourself you'll deal with later.
Now ask yourself honestly.
If this were one of my last days,
Would this still matter?
And if it wouldn't,
What does that tell you about how much of your actual precious attention it deserves right now?
That's it.
That's the practice.
It's not about death at all.
Not really.
It's about refusing to sleepwalk through the only life you're going to get.
If this speaks to you,
I've built a full four-day course here on Insight Timer called Memento Mori Living Fully,
Where we go much deeper into this with guided meditations built around presence,
Letting go,
Gratitude,
And purpose.
And I'd really love to have you there.
Until then though,
Thank you for being here and I hope to see you soon.
With love.
