Welcome to Stoic Snippets,
The track that is short in time,
But not in depth.
Momente Mori.
You have to remember that you will die.
Another thing worth considering is that it's almost certainly not when you think it will be.
Now,
On average,
Most of us will get to 79 years of life.
By the way,
That's 28,
854 days on the planet and roughly 700,
000 hours.
But it's actually more like two-thirds of this due to sleep.
If we factor in things like work,
Commuting,
Daydreaming,
It's more like 17.
5 years of prime life.
And that's all we really get.
That's your whole life though.
Let's talk about this week.
This week you have 112 waking hours to play with.
The question is,
What are you going to do with them?
Now,
If you don't have a good answer off the bat,
That's okay.
It's a pretty intense question,
I admit.
The purpose of this chat you and me are having is not to come up with an answer this time.
It's actually to make you question.
To continually question each activity you're doing to see if it's worth your time.
While you're doing that,
I want you to keep in mind that time is the most precious asset that we have,
And yet it is the one that we waste the most.
As Seneca challenges us,
We're tight-fisted with property and money,
Yet think too little of wasting time,
The one thing about which we should all be the toughest misers.
In a more aggressive stance,
Seneca asks us all,
You're scared of dying.
And tell me,
Is the kind of life you're leading really any different to being dead?
Ow,
That one hurts.
Now,
No one activity is bad,
By the way.
This is simply a good mental model to qualify how you spend your time.
So,
Each time you're doing something,
Ask yourself,
Are you happy with what you are doing in that given moment?
We're not ruling out certain behaviors,
We're just ruling out unintentionality.
Hopefully,
You have deemed listening to me up till now worthwhile,
And if you have,
Then I appreciate both the fact that you have put the stoic practice of memento mori into action,
And also that you've deemed my speaking worthwhile.
Marcus Aurelius said something a little bit softer.
He said this,
You could leave life right now,
Let that determine what you do,
What you say,
And what you think.
By keeping these things in mind,
You're going to live a life you're far happier with.
Good luck out there.
If you think you would like to learn more in the company of other stoics,
Then I'd like you to consider coming on my retreat.
You can find all the details under my profile here on InsideTimer.
Don't delay,
I think I've made it clear,
We're all on borrowed time.
See you soon.
