Memento Mori

I am usually in bed well before midnight on New Year’s Eve and I do not usually adopt New Year’s resolutions. It isn’t that object to resolutions, per se, but it isn’t the way my mind works. I am very much a planner and a goal setter. I like having objectives to work towards. I like knowing where I am headed. But the idea of a handful of resolutions to improve myself over the next 12 months doesn’t generally fit with the time horizon over which I set goals.

Still, I’ve been thinking a lot recently about where I am in life, the things I’ve accomplished and the places I have fallen short, and how I want to live this next half of my life. This weekend I spoke to a friend who recently retired at 56 years old and he mentioned his “body breaking down.” His knees hurt and he is struggling with his weight. He’s also suffering from reflux and not sleeping well. That clearly isn’t what I want. He also noted how he’s not sure how to spend his time. He’s no longer obligated to assuage corporate expectations but he doesn’t know what to do with himself. That isn’t what I want either.

That conversation got me thinking of two quotes. The first quote, perhaps apocryphally attributed to Bill Gates says, “Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years.” I’ve also heard it phrased, “most people overestimate what they can do in a day and underestimate what they can do in a year.” Both quotes work, I think.

The other quote or maybe better, other idea, has been popularized recently by Ryan Holiday but better attributable to the Stoics is, “memento mori” or “remember that you will die.”

If we remember that we will die, then logically it should follow that we will remember to live. If we remember  our end draws nigh, then it behooves us to get busy living life to the fullest. During a recent discussion Mark relayed a story of his daughter when in high school and the prevalent acronym “YOLO” or “you only live once.” Some of her classmates, it seems, took YOLO as a license to engage in reckless behavior with Mark offering the counterpoint that, if we only live once perhaps we would be well served by practicing a little personal risk management. Memento mori can have a similar effect except that it can drive people to squander their time with frivolities. They live their lives for the weekend or their next holiday. They are deeply invested in television or professional sports to the exclusion of intellectual or cultural pursuits.

That doesn’t mean that our lives should be exclusively work. Far from it, but time waits for no man and I come back to the idea that we overestimate what we can accomplish in a short period and underestimate what we can accomplish over time.

There is much I still want to accomplish in my life. Some are professional goals like starting profitable businesses. Some are creative, like collaboratively writing a book with some of the smartest people I’ve ever met. I don’t want my physical condition to ever hold me back from doing the things I want to do. I’d like to get a few more stamps in my passport.

In reflecting on these goals, it occurs to me one of the reasons many of us tend to fall short of long term objectives is because short term progress is so difficult to measure that we lose interest. To combat this I arrived at the idea of scoring each day as either a +1 or a -1 in the categories that are important to me. For example, if I run or workout on a given day, that day is a +1 in the fitness column. Skipped a workout? That’s a -1 and then I keep a running sum. At the end of 2021 my fitness metric has to total at least zero or I’ve likely lost ground, the possible outcomes ranging from -365 to +365. Have I worked on my writing today? +1 or -1. Have a I spent time with my wife? +1 or -1. It’s black and white and a way to maintain accountability with myself over time.

Memento mori. Remember that you will die. We all will.

You only live once. We all do.

You and I have so much to offer this world. So much the world needs. Given enough time and concerted effort it can all be accomplished and more. Listen to that voice in your heart, the one that nags you to paint, to write, to start that business, to propose, to workout. When you lay your head on the pillow each night, do so with the comfort of knowing you did what you needed and wanted to do that day. Listen to that voice and get busy living.

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