“Philosophy has taught [us] to be grateful for life and yet unafraid of dying.” -Donald Robertson
Death occupies the dissonant space comprised of things that are both discomfort-inducing and yet entirely natural. It is life’s natural constant, and yet we’re terrified by it. We fear death because we feel it threatens something—likely a reality we’ve yet to realize, or one of which we’re just on the brink. Rather than fearing the inevitability that is death, perhaps we should fear not living in a way that, when death approaches, we can face it contentedly.
It could be said that many people who fear death aren’t living in a way that justifies that fear. Our tendency to be jolted into action only when we sense a window of opportunity closing indicates our general comfort with coasting. We coast until we can’t anymore, until someone holds us accountable or until our livelihoods depend on taking an action we’ve put off. Our aim, however, is to not require extreme circumstances to show up for our lives.
Read more“We must act with all urgency, then, not only because we are drawing closer to death at every moment, but also because our power to understand things and pay close attention to them gives out before the end.” -Marcus Aurelius
Many of us are familiar with the phrase, “tyranny of the urgent.” Made popular by the book of the same name, it’s the descriptor for what happens when the emergence of some immediate need (commonly referred to in the corporate world as a “fire”) monopolizes our attention and temporarily supersedes our larger, potentially more important pursuits. It’s called tyranny because of the sense of helplessness that often accompanies these tasks, convincing us we've no other choice but to tend to them. A similar sensation occurs when we’re approaching any sort of deadline. Wrought with anxiety over the consequences of not meeting it, we rally our best efforts and resources to see the project through within the established timeline. As such, the result is astounding: the task gets completed.
There are few things more powerful, more focused, than a person who has to do something, be it for their career, survival, or otherwise. When called to operate at a specific level within specific time bounds to achieve a specific task, we become near-unstoppable.
Read more"Let us cut out all distractions and work away at this alone for fear that otherwise we may be left behind and only eventually realize one day the swiftness of the passage of this fleeting phenomenon, time, which we are powerless to hold back. Every day as it comes should be welcomed and reduced forthwith into our own possession as if it were the finest day imaginable. What flies past has to be seized at." -Seneca
Imagine a world where, in each moment, you were acutely aware of the swiftness of the passage of time. There’s a human tendency to only acknowledge this swiftness in retrospect. How am I already ___ years old? I can’t believe it’s already midway through the year. Can you believe we graduated ___ years ago? And not only is the acknowledgement of time’s passage usually in retrospect, but it’s typically in an air of lamenting. We lament the fact that we’re already so old, or that we’re already out of that situation that we’re now suddenly certain was ideal. Luckily for us, the Stoics had a solution to this perpetual melancholic nostalgia: in all circumstances, remember that everything is always changing; love this fact and live accordingly.
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