Carpe Diem
I think that life would suddenly seem wonderful to us if we were threatened to die.
“Think of the life you have lived until now as over and, as a dead man, see what’s left as a bonus and live it according to Nature. Love the hand that fate deals you and play it as your own, for what could be more fitting?” - Marcus Aurelius
“Let us prepare our minds as if we’d come to the very end of life. Let us postpone nothing. Let us balance life’s books each day … The one who puts the finishing touches on their life each day is never short of time.” - Seneca
Recently, I revisited this lovely and invigorating passage by the literary author Marcel Proust. It’s outstanding in its timelessness,
“I think that life would suddenly seem wonderful to us if we were threatened to die as you say. Just think of how many projects, travels, love affairs, studies, it–our life–hides from us, made invisible by our laziness which, certain of a future, delays them incessantly.
‘But let all this threaten to become impossible for ever, how beautiful it would become again! Ah! If only the cataclysm doesn’t happen this time, we won’t miss visiting the new galleries of the Louvre, throwing ourselves at the feet of Miss X, making a trip to India.
‘The cataclysm doesn’t happen, we don’t do any of it, because we find ourselves back in the heart of normal life, where negligence deadens desire. And yet we shouldn’t have needed the cataclysm to love life today. It would have been enough to think that we are humans, and that death may come this evening.”
It’s frightening to think about death, isn’t it? Even imagining it feels like tempting fate, as though the moment you picture your final breath, you might accidentally summon it. So you don’t. You distract yourself. You scroll your memes, you grab a beer in the evening, you watch your comfort shows. And when called forth to do your best, you convince yourself you’ll live fully someday- when you’re paid better, when the timing’s right, when life feels less brittle, when you do this- when you do that. But the truth is, you’re…
Join 77,000 other Stoics,
P.S: Annual & Patron members get access to over 250 premium meditations + all my books with their subscription. The bundle includes, ‘The Best of Marcus Aurelius’, ‘The Tools’, with over 40,000 words of bonus content + a free copy of ‘The Stoic Manual Vol. 1’ dropping September next year. Patron members also get Lifetime Access to the publication, all bonuses, and all future benefits- at no extra cost. Featured,
