Have you ever struggled to find meaning in life? Missing that zest that motivates you to get up in the morning? Or feeling an inexplicable sense of melancholy that drags you down? I certainly have. Emotions are like pendulums that swing back and forth, sometimes positively, sometimes for the worst, in the most unpredictable manner.
In modern life (at least in first-world countries), we collectively have everything we could ever want. All our needs are met, and we make things we didn’t even know we needed in the first place (dedicated egg cookers?). As a species, we’ve achieved feats that no other animal on planet Earth can even dream of, and yet despite all our apparent “successes,” loneliness, sadness, depression, and a myriad of problems that should’ve been left in the Stone Age are now more common than ever. In humanity’s attempt to better ourselves and the lives of each other, we’ve created a system and society that values vanity and teaches people to chase after the most meaningless things such as material possessions, wealth, and status. No wonder it’s hard to make sense of anything.
How do we find the antidote to all this chaos and make sense of the apparent meaninglessness of life? I turned to the writings of Marcus Aurelius in his Meditations, and immediately this idea spoke to me:
“You may leave this life at any moment: have this possibility in your mind in all that you do or say or think.”
Meditations Book 2, 11
The idea is very simple. In plain words, it’s all about living every single day as if it were your last. Through this perspective, it’s possible to gain some clarity around what is truly important to us and what isn’t. Who cares about what other people think about us? Who cares about what we have and don’t have? Who cares about the number of likes on our last Instagram post? All these things are pointless when you consider your life at its end.
If this doesn’t make sense, think of it this way: imagine yourself getting into a terrible traffic accident and finding yourself right at death’s door. However, by some miracle of modern medicine, you were saved and now you’re fully recovered. Knowing that you could have and very much would have died in that moment will give you a lot of perspective on the life you’re currently still living. Your life after such an accident is something to be cherished because it’s a gift. On life, this is what Marcus Aurelius says:
“Even if you were destined to live three thousand years, or ten times that long, nevertheless remember that no one loses any life other than the one he lives, nor lives any life other than the one he loses.”
Meditations Book 2, 14
We each only have one life and that’s it. There’s no more to that. What has passed is past, and we cannot change it. Similarly, we cannot predict or control the future. However, what you do have control over is what you choose to do right now in this very moment.
One of the biggest problems we face today in modern society is that we all too easily forget how short and fleeting life can be. The average person, assuming no accidents or major illnesses, might live to the age of 80, and that’s it. When you break that number down, it’s 80 summers and 80 winters. It’s 4,160 weeks and 29,120 days. That’s all we get. Yet, for some reason, we don’t recognise how short and really precious all that time is, until of course, it’s all too late.
Consider your life forfeit, and every single hour from here on out that you live to be a gift – that’s why it’s called the present (cheesy, I know). This way, you can truly start to work on and focus on the things and moments that really matter to you.
I will leave with another great quote from Marcus Aurelius:
“How easy it is to drive away or obliterate from one’s mind every impression which is troublesome or alien, and then to be immediately in perfect calm.”
Meditations Book 5, 2
All it takes is a small change in perspective.
Pictures by DALL-E