“You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.”
– Marcus Aurelius
Memento mori (Latin: “remember that you have to die”)
Memento Mori is one of the quotes, slogans, mantras what ever you want to call it, that has been rattling around my never resting brain. I have Tim Ferriss, author of “The Four Hour Workweek” among other books. and author Ryan Holiday creator of the Daily Stoic , to thank for this. The message is simple remember you are mortal you will die that is a guarantee. It is not meant to be a depressing thought but a motivating one. Memento mori is meant to remind you to make the most of each day because tomorrow is not promised. So what does this have to do with the pictures of this living healthy tree in the fall. This tree as any of my followers would know is the Japanese maple in my back yard. The day before I took these pictures the sun was setting any my wife pointed out how beautiful the tree and its bright red leaves looked bathed in the glowing setting sun. I thought wow I should get a picture of that, I’ll do that tomorrow. Well a cold front moved in that night and the next day as you can see there was a carpet of red below the tree. The leaves were literally pouring off the tree. The more I thought of this and observed the leaves falling like water in a rain storm the more I thought about memento mori. The beautiful picture was gone in a day I just put it off one day. How many things in life do we just put off just one day, how many times does that one day never come? The biggest lesson about stoicism that so many miss is not to think about the “answers” to life, but to get out and take action. Seeing this very obvious smack in the face warning about procrastination should be a motivator to me to get up, get out, and get going.
