Most of you are wasting your goddamn lives. That’s the cold, hard truth.
We go through our days on autopilot, sleepwalking through a mind-numbing routine of work, TV, weekends, repeat. Stuck in the comfort of familiarity. Choosing the easy path of existence over the narrow way of really living.
All the while, the clock is ticking. Seconds, hours, days, years slipping away, never to be seen again.
We delude ourselves into thinking we have “plenty of time.” Time to get started on our dreams. Time to spend with loved ones. Time to finally become the person we know we can be. So we procrastinate and put life off.
What a tragic fucking joke.
News flash: You are going to die. I am going to die. Everyone you love is going to die. We are all living on borrowed time, and we don’t know when our number will be punched.
This is the one inevitable fact of human existence. The one appointment we all will keep, whether we like it or not.
And yet we live in denial of this reality. We avoid thinking or talking about death, as if ignoring it will make it go away. We numb ourselves to our own mortality with bullshit distractions and petty concerns.
But the great Stoic philosophers had it right. They advised “Memento Mori” – Remember Death. Reflecting on our inevitable end as a way to live life to the fullest now.
Remembering that you will die isn’t morose or depressing. It’s motivating. It’s the swift kick in the ass you need to wake up and start making the most of each moment.
It puts all the pointless crap you worry about in perspective. Subway delay made you 10 minutes late? Failed a test? Someone said something mean? Who gives a shit.
You’re going to be dead soon. And so will they.
Stop wasting time on the trivial and transient. Get busy living as if each day could be your last. Because it damn well could be.
Chase your dreams with a sense of urgency. Tell people you love them. Forgive and forget grievances. Take more risks. Show more gratitude. Seek more adventures. Fucking live.
The clock is relentlessly counting down.
Will you look back on a life half-lived? A meek existence ruled by fear, complacency and petty bullshit?
Or will you face the Reaper with the peaceful smile of a man who truly seized his days? Who squeezed all the marrow out of life?
The choice is yours. The time is now. You are not guaranteed a tomorrow.
Memento Mori.
Remember you will die.
Then go really live.