Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 4.37

Everything is only for a day, both that which remembers and that which is remembered.

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

I can still precisely remember her every word, every aspect of the room, how the sun shone into the space, and just how the branches outside swayed in the breeze.

“You’ll always be my best friend. I love you. Nothing will change that. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Just you.”

Two weeks later, after my aborted marriage proposal, all bets were off. The only time I ever sat down with her again, after my failure, she said that taking my own life was the best option for me.

What was said on one day was most certainly not remembered on the next.

My experience is hardly unique. Too many of us believe in all the shallow promises and commitments, about forever and ever, that we are given by those who are disloyal and dishonest. The world is full of the dismayed, the dismissed, and the heartbroken. They are cast aside and forgotten, while those who treated them poorly smile for the camera.

Thinking of this hurts, but the hurt serves a purpose. Mourning about a loss need never be about hopelessness, but the loss can itself become a means for hope. It’s all about what I choose to care about, and why I might choose to care.

Love matters, but it isn’t about being loved. I was my own victim, by depending on a false promise of eternal devotion. It was certainly within my power to offer love, without condition, but it was not within my power to expect love, without condition.

In the end, none of these passing things make any difference at all. I hoped for something timeless, but nothing is timeless. My own promise is only as good as much as I renew it, through my actions, for each and every second I am alive. It isn’t my place to speak for anyone else’s promises or actions.

Everything is only for a day. This doesn’t mean that we cannot be committed, but that a commitment must be forged at every moment, in every changing circumstance, until we meet our end. Promises are easy to make, but hard to keep. A promise only makes sense when we act it out, right here and now, and then over and over and over again. Tomorrow is easy, but today is hard.

What has happened, what is remembered, becomes meaningless in the face of what I am actually doing. Reputation means nothing. Action means everything.

My rambling thoughts help me to realize how insignificant it is to worry about how anything will be remembered. It matters only how my life was lived, when it was lived.  

Written in 11/2005

Image: A gathering of apparently important students before our graduation in 1992. Even if you have never met me, you'll see you which fellow I am. Insightful folks will also recognize the lost love of my life in the picture.