Memento Mori: Consider Your Mortality

Death denial leads to a dead life.

I do not wish to die, and yet the fact that I will die one day is one of the most useful tokens in my life. I still find myself caught up in little waves of terror when I consider the finality of death (this usually happens just about the time I’m getting into bed to rest my fragile meat suit for the night) but every morning when I get up, delighted to find myself still living, the knowledge that I will die one day helps guide me towards more fulfilling choices.

Knowing you’ll die one day becomes a lens through which you can filter a lot of choices and interactions. The phrase “life’s too short” is a cliche but it’s a useful one. It doesn’t need to propel you towards bungee jumping off a helicopter while shrieking “YOLO!!!” at the top of your lungs, but once you begin to do the math on how many weeks and months you are likely to have left, it can serve as a good reminder that spending precious minutes of your life doing things you don’t want to do is the ultimate waste. Of course there are times when you will have to do things you don’t want to do, but in those instances, all I can say is: engage with those things as vividly as possible. Even the things we do not want to do have something of interest if we pay close enough attention.

For me, I know what things bring me joy (deadlifting, golf, running, walking the wonderhound in this or that naturally resplendent place, photowalks with my mom) and so I just make sure that I’m creating opportunities to do those things as often as possible while still being a semi-functioning member of society.

So don’t fear death. It can be the antidote to a wasted life if you let it.