Memento Mori

Modern life seems to be all about getting stuff done. The more you do and the harder you work, the better off you will be in the end. More money, more freedom (highly debatable) and so on. But have you ever asked yourself if this success formula actually, deeply fulfills and nourishes a human being? Or does it push us to the edge, making a mess of our balance, and so losing more than we have to gain?

This thursday has been the one that gave me the opportunity to reflect on this question and write my thoughts down.

Adding to the fact that the past few weeks had been very eventful (and thus busier than usual), these past couple of days really tightened the bolt all the way: a hard deadline, due thursday evening, set for an app I struggled to keep implementing and improving. There were lots of bugs, inconsistencies, spaghetti code and so on to tackle in a very short period of time. Since this monday I have been working almost all waking day, everyday, to get it done.

And so I did: the result was very satisfactory and all the hard work paid off in the end.

Yet that very evening, late at night, my mind started wandering, not giving me the peace and quiet I needed to fall asleep.

First, it came to me that this week flew by faster than any other one I could remember.

Soon after, I realised this could have been my last day alive.

My last day would have flown right by me, not amounting to anything but some new problem solved and grade received. All week I spent typing away at my keyboard, hoping that error message would get solved or that this table would fit the data correctly onto the page. Multiple days where all I did was work. Those days felt like one and the same, not adding even one little tile to the mozaic of life.

The Stoics remind us of a core principle: Memento Mori. It's one that's both impossible to fully comprehend and simple to put in practice. Telling yourself "I might not be here tomorrow to experience this" is as harsh as it is liberating.

This is more than just one simple way to get yourself back on track when you get carried away by the problems of everyday life. It should make you think about where you're going and what it means to you.

Nobody can only live in the present, and there's no way to live life in the past or the future. The key must be balance between doing what's best for the future and making the most of the present.

To put it in perspective a bit: the average lifespan of a human being is (and Oliver Burkeman could tell us more about this number) 4000 weeks. That’s it.

That adds up to roughly 28000 days. If you're very lucky. No matter how busy or stressful, let there be none where you forget to...