Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 4.18

Do not act as if you were going to live ten thousand years. Death hangs over you.

While you live, while it is in your power, be good.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 4 (tr Long)

When we repeatedly hear the Stoic reminders of our mortality, we might begin to resent them, or consider them too abstractly, or grow numb to their daily meaning.

I have been told, for example, that Marcus Aurelius seems quite a morbid fellow, because he always seems to be discussing death. I have never taken this as morbidity at all, but actually as the opposite, an insistence on not wasting the beauty of life, and on making the most of every opportunity.

I try not to approach this question from the top down, but from the bottom up. I don’t just consider the idea of death and dying, but how that reality relates to my daily choices and actions. It isn’t just a matter of knowing that I will die one day, or even that today could be that day. It concerns how I will use that knowledge to make myself better right here, and live my life to the fullest.

When I am immediately aware that I have only the guarantee of this very immediate moment of now, I should not panic, but I should commit. What should I care about most in life? However I answer that question, that is what I should be doing now, first and foremost, whatever else may be going on around me.

If I know I should seek the truth, why am I telling myself to look the other way now, but to figure it out later?

If I know I should be brave, why am I telling myself to run away now, but to find the strength later?

If I know I should practice self-control, why am I telling myself I will live in excess now, but to find moderation later?

If I know I should be fair, why am I telling myself to neglect my neighbor’s needs now, but to find a solution later?

I may not literally think that I will live for ten thousand years, but I might as well be thinking it. When I cannot face the needs of right now, I might as well be putting them off forever. When I cannot show love and concern for someone else right now, I might as well be putting it off forever. When I cannot ultimately face the fact that I will not have infinite opportunities of circumstance to make my life right, I have already gotten it wrong.

I try to think of it not as fearing the concept of death, but as valuing the activity of life. Death should never be feared, because it is not an evil. But life should always be cherished, because however much of it is given to me is all that I will have within my power.

Written in 9/2005