Overthink

Dont overthink.

Remember:

From Memento Mori - Remember That you will Die.

The idea of Memento Mori is to remind us that we do not have control over our fate. We can die later today, tomorrow, 80 years from now, or anytime in between. It’s not up to us. The only thing we can be sure of is that it will happen.

It is important to accept this fact, so we can fully embrace the moment we are in. We shouldn’t put things off until tomorrow because we may not have tomorrow. One day we definitely won’t have a tomorrow and that day could be today. The memento mori is a regular reminder of this fact.

If we keep this fact in mind we will love those around us more deeply because we will treat every moment with those we love as the last moment we will ever have with them. Our work is better because we will treat everything as the last thing we will ever do and I want the last thing I do to be something beautiful. We won’t be afraid to try new things or experiences because we may never have another chance. - ref/reddit

Accepting death's inevitability means accepting your only certain future. The more we embrace our mortality, the less fear we have in our life. It's paradoxical how confronting death brings deeper tranquility.

From Thought Exercise: Funeral of a Loved one

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Please find a place to read these next few pages where you can be alone and uninterrupted. Clear your mind of everything except what you will read and what I will invite you to do. Don’t worry about your schedule, your business, your family, or your friends. Just focus with me and really open your mind.

In your mind’s eye, see yourself going to the funeral of a loved one. Picture yourself driving to the funeral parlor or chapel, parking the car, and getting out. As you walk inside the building, you notice the flowers, the soft organ music. You see the faces of friends and family you pass along the way. You feel the shared sorrow of losing, the joy of having known, that radiates from the hearts of the people there.

As you walk down to the front of the room and look inside the casket, you suddenly come face to face with yourself. This is your funeral, three years from today. All these people have come to honor you, to express feelings of love and appreciation for your life.

As you take a seat and wait for the services to begin, you look at the program in your hand. There are to be four speakers. The first is from your family, immediate and also extended—children, brothers, sisters, nephews, nieces, aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents who have come from all over the country to attend. The second speaker is one of your friends, someone who can give a sense of what you were as a person. The third speaker is from your work or profession. And the fourth is from your church or some community organization where you’ve been involved in service.

Now think deeply. What would you like each of these speakers to say about you and your life? What kind of husband, wife, father, or mother would you like their words to reflect? What kind of son or daughter or cousin? What kind of friend? What kind of working associate? What character would you like them to have seen in you? What contributions, what achievements would you want them to remember? Look carefully at the people around you. What difference would you like to have made in their lives? - Stephen Covey/7 Habits of Effective People

From you-could-leave-life-right-now

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“You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.” — Marcus-Aurelius

“The final hour when we cease to exist does not itself bring death; it merely of itself completes the death-process.” — Seneca

“We have two lives and the second begins when we realize we only have one.” — Confucius

"With regard to everything that you enjoy, find useful, or love, keep their nature in mind, starting with the smallest things. If you have a favorite coffee cup, remember that it’s a cup; then if it’s broken, you can stand it. When you hug your child or your spouse, remember that it’s a mortal human being you’re hugging; then if that person dies, you can stand it." - Epictetus/3: Keep the nature of everything in mind. Cups break, Humans are mortal.

“Keep before your eyes from day to day death and exile and all things that seem terrible, but death most of all, and then you will never set your thoughts on what is low and will never desire anything beyond measure.” — Epictetus

“Everything transitory—the knower and the known.” — Marcus-Aurelius

From Being Afraid of Death Is Ignorance

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“To be afraid of death is only another form of thinking that one is wise when one is not; it is to think that one knows what one does not know. No one knows with regard to death whether it is not really the greatest blessing that can happen to a man; but people dread it as though they were certain that it is the greatest evil; and this ignorance, which thinks that it knows what it does not, must surely be ignorance most culpable.” — Plato

"Death smiles at us all; all we can do is smile back." - Depiction of Marcus-Aurelius in Gladiator

"As you kiss your son good night, whisper to yourself, “He may be dead in the morning.” Don’t tempt fate, you say. By talking about a natural event? Is fate tempted when we speak of grain being reaped?" - Epictetus

"Stop whatever you are doing and ask yourself: Am I afraid of death because I won’t be able to do this anymore?" - Marcus-Aurelius

You want to live but do you know how to live? You are scared of dying and tell me, is the kind of life you lead really any different than being dead? - Seneca

"It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live according to nature." - Marcus-Aurelius

Walter White Speech on Death

“What you are now, we once were; What we are now, you shall be.”

If you’re desensitized to the fact that you’re going to die, consider it a different way. As far as you’re concerned, this world is going to end. Now what? - Naval Ravikant