The Daily Stoic - If Today Was Your Last Day

Episode Date: October 5, 2018

We put a lot of thought into making distinctions about what’s urgent and what’s not. We put a lot of effort into planning. We have our conservative calculations for retirement and our ambitious ones. We have a bucket list that includes the things we want to do now, in the future and in the way way off distant future. All of which presumes we’ve got plenty of time with which to do it all. The thought exercise from Marcus Aurelius: “Suppose that a god announced that you were going to die tomorrow “or the day after.” Unless you were a complete coward you wouldn’t kick up a fuss about which day it was--what difference could it make? Now recognize that the difference between years from now and tomorrow is just as small.” We live under precisely the kind of sentence that Marcus described. We could go today. We could go tomorrow. This week or next week. In twenty minutes or twenty years. These are, in the big scheme of things, infinitely small amounts of time. You get that, right? So why are you living as if you have forever? Why are you wasting so much time? Don’t be a coward. Don’t split hairs. Live your life. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoke podcast early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today. Welcome to the Daily Stoke. For each day, we read a short passage designed to help you cultivate the strength, insight, wisdom necessary for living the good life. insight, wisdom necessary for living good life. Each one of these passages is based on the 2000-year-old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women. For more, you can visit us at dailystoic.com. If today was your last day, we put a lot of thought into making distinctions about what's urgent and what's not. We put a lot of effort into making distinctions about what's urgent and what's not. We put a lot of effort into planning. We have conservative calculations for our retirement and ambitious ones.

We have a bucket list that includes the things we want to do now, in the future, and in the way, way off distant future, all of which presumes that we've got plenty of time with which to do it all. The thought exercise from Marcus Aurelius. Suppose that a god announced that you were going to die tomorrow or the day after. Unless you were a complete coward, you wouldn't kick up a fuss about which day it was. What difference could it make? Now recognize that the difference between years from now and tomorrow is just as small.

We live under precisely the kind of sentence that Marcus described. We could go today. We could go tomorrow, this week or next week, in 20 minutes or 20 years. These are in the big scheme of things infinitely small amounts of time. You get that, right?

So why are you living as if you have forever? Why are you wasting so much time? Don't be a coward. Don't split hairs. Live your life. And of course if you want a reminder of this idea, we have our Mementomori Medallion and our Mementomori necklace, which people now wear and carry all around the world and all sorts of professions and all sorts of walks of life from professional athletes to special forces soldiers to actors to politicians to garbage men and students. They carry this reminder because it's so easy to forget that we could leave life at any given moment and that we need to make the most of it while we're here.

I encourage you to check that out and go to go to daily stoic.com slash mm. Hey, prime members, you can listen to the daily stoic early and ad free on Amazon music. Download the Amazon music app today, or you canic early and ad free on Amazon Music, download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early and ad free with Wondery Plus in Apple podcasts.