Dee

“To accept it without arrogance, to let it go with indifference.” — Marcus Aurelius

"Ask yourself at every moment. Is this necessary?" — Marcus Aurelius

It’s inevitable that you will do wrong. What matters, at least to the Stoics, is not the mistakes (these simple errors that are a fact of life) but what we do about them.

Be quiet, work hard, and stay healthy. It’s not ambition or skill that is going to set you apart but sanity.

Death isn’t in the future. It’s happening now. It’s easy to see death as this thing that lies off in the distant future. It’s a fixed event that happens to us once…at the end. Literally, this is true. But it’s also incorrect. “This is our big mistake,” Seneca says, “to think we look forward toward death. Most of death is already gone. Whatever time has passed is owned by death.” Death is a process—something that is always happening. We are dying every day, he said. Even as you read, time is passing that you will never get back. That time belongs to death. Powerful, right? Death doesn’t lie off in the distance. It’s with us right now. It’s the second hand on the clock. It’s the setting sun. As the arrow of time moves, death follows, claiming every moment that has passed. What ought we do about it? The answer is live. Live while you can. Put nothing off. Leave nothing unfinished. Seize it while it still belongs to us.