Advice from a Roman

This quote from Marcus Aurelius wormed its way into my head and won’t let go, like a bad pop song from the 80s you hear in the elevator, but (presumably) with more depth.

So now, I’m letting it lose on you:

“Think of yourself as dead. You have lived your life. Now take what’s left and live it properly.”

For the uninitiated, Aurelius was a Roman Emperor and Stoic philosopher. His book of meditations is essential philosophy reading. (This is my favorite translation, xxy uses modern phrasing that’s easy to understand.)

Death is a pretty consistent theme for the Stoics, not morbidly, but in the sense of rebirth. Let go of the past, live in the present, and so on.

And I hear about people who have near-death experiences or find out they are terminally ill, completely change their lives, and ask, “Why didn’t I do this sooner?”

I see this quote and think that it’s deep and interesting. I think I should ponder it a bit. Maybe I’ll quote it in a Substack post.

Because it’s hard to pretend you’ve been given a new life. It isn’t a little thing. It doesn’t mean that you go from full-fat to no-fat yogurt (yes, I really have, Dr. Mehta)…

I say, maybe even believe, I’m making decisions now, today, to live a full life, but the cold, hard, honest truth is that I still make decisions today based on what I did in the past and what I should do now and for the future.

So what if we took this seriously? What if we really assumed we were starting from scratch or had that near-death experience?

What would you do?

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What if we took this seriously