While leading the Roman Empire in battle on multiple fronts, Marcus Aurelius would write in his journal at night.
These thoughts were intended as a reminder to himself on how to lead a good and fulfilled life. It’s quite the scenario, the most powerful man in the world, writing down his thoughts imploring himself to be a better person.
Today, we have the pleasure of being able to read these thoughts, in Meditations. Marcus never intended his journal to be widely read, it was a reminder to himself. A habit he developed over time.
One particular passage from this book stuck out when I first read it. The line was unconventional and made me ponder the way I was leading my life.
The line was this: “Think of yourself as dead. You have lived your life. Now take what’s left and live properly.”
It’s a short but powerful passage that made me stop in my tracks. Many of us want to lead a better life but we’re unsure how. Or, we delay improving our lives because we believe we have enough time remaining to change our ways.
By living your life as if it’s coming to an end, or is already ended, you live with urgency and in the minute. The tendency to waste time is removed because you have no time to waste. It’s a simple but powerful framing of life that can work wonders.
Dead Time
The easiest thing to do in life is to waste time. This is due to a fallacy in our thinking. We tend to think that we have all the time in the world, when in fact, we have no way of knowing whether this is the case.
The cruel thing about life is that it’s long enough to make us think that it will last forever but short enough that we bemoan when we feel time slipping away from us.
This way of thinking can lead us to slip into bad habits. Putting off things until a later date, not taking life by the reins is a surefire way to end up in the same spot five or ten years down the road.
What Marcus was imploring himself to do in that passage was to imagine he was already dead. Thus, he would only do what was important. If you act as if you’re dead or close to death, there is an urgency to do what you can while you can.
One of the top regrets of the dying is that they wish they’d had the courage to live a life that was true to themselves. Health gives us a freedom that few of us realise, the ability to live how we wish.
Yet, we squander this freedom by not realising its power. Instead, we often go through the motions and it’s later when our health starts to fail us and we can’t do what we used to, that we regret what we could have done instead of what we did.
As far as we know, life is a one time offer. The scarcity of life is incredible. The odds of existing are so high, that it’s a miracle you exist at all. If we were offered the chance to buy a Ferrari or a mansion for $1,000, I’m sure most of us would snap it up straight away.
The inverse is true when it comes to our own lives. We are not living properly and neglect to tea up the offer because we fail to release our mortality. Urgency is replaced by lethargy and the desire to improve ourselves is squeezed until it recedes.
By accepting that all that has gone before is dead, we can live a better life with more purpose.
Alive Time
It’s a novel way of looking at life, but if you know you’re time was coming to an end, most of us would change the way we lived.
If you were told you had only three years left to live, would you do what we're doing, or would you do something else? Would you travel somewhere you’d always wanted to see? Would you start a business, or write that book you’d always been mulling over?
Odds are, you would. To go living in the same manner as before would be a crime. Viewing ourselves as already dead is a powerful figurative tool that we can use to improve our lives in the present.
We give ourselves the agency to plan for the future and do those things that are close to our hearts. The truth is that we don’t know when we will depart this Earth, we just know that we will.
Living properly is something that not all of us do. It’s difficult to eat well, keep fit and plan for the future. All of this requires thought and planning, something that’s easier to put off.
The problem is that one day there will come a time when we can’t put things off. Or, we’ll reach a point in our lives where we realise we’ve wasted a lot of time that we’ll never get back.
Treat yourself as dead. Treat yourself as if the clock has run out. Treat yourself as if you’ve been given a second chance.
If you found out that you had been brought back to life and had an opportunity to live again, what would you do? Would you do the same as before, or would you approach life in a different manner? One that maximises every aspect of your life in the present and the future?
If it was me, I’d live life properly as Marcus implored. Second chances are rare. Treat your current life as a second chance and you’ll never take anything for granted again!
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