Amor Fati vs Memento Mori, Two Stoic Mantras
Amor fati and memento mori are two of the most quoted phrases in Stoicism. Amor fati means love your fate, the practice of embracing everything that happens to you…
Remember you will die — and live more because of it.
Amor fati and memento mori are two of the most quoted phrases in Stoicism. Amor fati means love your fate, the practice of embracing everything that happens to you…
On the Shortness of Life is Seneca’s short, blazing essay arguing that life is not too short, we just waste most of it. Written to his friend Paulinus, it attacks…
Seneca’s quotes come mostly from his letters, which means they read like advice from a friend rather than a lecture. He wrote about time, fear, money, and death…
The Stoic morning routine is a short mental preparation for the day, not a long ritual. You wake with gratitude, picture the obstacles and difficult people ahead so…
A collection of the most striking Stoic quotes on death and mortality, from Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, and Epictetus. The Stoics kept death in clear view, not to be…
A collection of the sharpest Stoic quotes on time, drawn mostly from Seneca, who wrote about it more powerfully than anyone. The Stoics saw time as the one thing we…
The Stoics treated death not as a horror to flee but as a natural event to understand. They held that the fear of death comes from our judgments about it, not from…
Stoicism approaches grief not by numbing it but by changing how you hold it. The Stoics taught that nothing was ever truly ours to keep, only ours to borrow, and…
Memento mori is a Latin phrase that means remember that you must die. It is the Stoic practice of keeping your own death in plain view, not to feel grim, but to cut…
A few years ago, I lost my dad. He was 55. It was, obviously, a major loss. One day he was here, laughing, arguing, living. The next he was gone. Just like that…
3-4 times a week, I drag myself to Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu training. 2-3 times a week, I fumble through guitar chords. I spend some mornings in the pool, and some doing…
Ever found yourself staring up at the stars, those infinite cosmic wonders, only to pause, and ponder what it means to be mortal? Maybe you’ve felt that strange…
Stoicism, a philosophy with roots in ancient Greece and Rome, is no stranger to the modern world. It’s been receiving a resurgence of interest in recent years due…
Life is a casino. Since no one knows the future, we’re gambling either way, whether we try something new or we don’t. In a way, we all gamble and assume risks…
Our life is ephemeral because death is inevitable. It surprisingly can come anytime, anywhere. Maybe there is someone out there who would rob or kill you for a…
It is hard to imagine that our sun is just one star among billions of stars in billions of galaxies in the observable universe. The universe isn’t tiny at all…
We sometimes let society dictate what “good,” “the best,” and “wealth” means , what we are supposed to do and what we are supposed to own to be considered…
The unexpected happens all the time. There may be a war in your country that creates endless supply chain problems. A disaster may strike without warning, and you…
Prepare for the rainy day when the sun is still shining. Think of the worse things that can happen to you? Death of a loved one? Or maybe you lose your job? Or get…
There’s always something better out there. Reflect on that thought and cut down on your possessions. Be grateful for how much you already possess. Remember that the…
The Stoic philosophers of ancient Greece and Rome approached life with a sense of practical wisdom, understanding that contentment is found not in the abundance of…
Whenever you start a book, set an intent. Why are you reading this particular book? What do you want to gain? You don’t have to read the whole library to gain…
You don’t have to assume that things out of your control are wrong and that what you didn’t ask for is always terrible. You know, sometimes a breakup might be good…
A few years ago, you had things planned for yourself, and you might already have achieved those things. Some people would love to have what you have right now and…
Do you remember your great-great-grandparents? I don’t. It’s no one’s fault, and there’s nothing we can do about it. We’re all here for a short while, and history…
We all have a bucket list and places we need to travel to and live a unique social media life, and maybe we should. Why not? But, we don’t have to put so much…
Our body is just a vessel that shows what we really are inside. It doesn’t matter what you look like on the outside , so don’t care just about it. Instead, care…
We, humans, grip so tightly to life, sometimes harder than we should, and that attachment is the root of all fear of death. Yet, even when we practice…
Scroll through anyone’s feed and you will find a wall of borrowed wisdom. A Marcus Aurelius quote here, a Steve Jobs line there, someone else’s insight reshared for…
So, how was your life? What did you do all these years? Did you make real progress and gain some wisdom? Did you practice every day as you once promised yourself? I…
Don’t fear death; instead, fear the fear of death. Think about all the things and adventures you are missing out on because of your fear of dying. The fear of death…
Individually we are just one among the billions, and we’re all doing all our personal best. But, no matter how important we are now or were once, all individuals…
We are all unaware; unaware of when and how we’ll die, and this is the uncertainty we are afraid of. We have labeled these emotions about death as painful, and…
The idea of becoming a sage isn’t realistic because no one can always do the right thing for a complete 24/7 working on a specific pattern and a schedule. But…
Even though we have accomplished a lot, w e humans constantly search for new achievements and forget that we’ll always be unfinished products. But, in the end…
Time and again, we have heard this phrase that age is just a number. For some, aging is less dramatic than others. While some age-related changes can be benign, the…
Our life is just a mere drop in the ocean of time, and that’s how it’s supposed to be. All that we know is history or will be history one day. Empires fall…
Everybody wants your attention. Even the notifications popping out of your smartphones fight for your attention. We’re pretty liberal with how freely we spend our…
Time, as a concept, has been a subject of deep philosophical contemplation throughout human history. From ancient philosophers to modern scientists, the…
You’re sad only when you lose something valuable. You’re scared, only when the danger is present. You’re in guilt only when you know you did something wrong…
Life is often compared to a game, filled with endless turns and spins, challenges, and victories. A particular metaphor rings profoundly true – that of likening…
Imagine a sword over your head that symbolizes that something terrible can happen to you, too, at any time. We are all mortal, so we should stop behaving as if we…
We own nothing when we are born, and we own nothing when we leave. We borrowed it from our forefathers, and when our time comes, we return and leave them for the…
Do you know someone who had a near-death experience? Because they’ll tell you what they felt and how everything changes at that moment of death. We all should learn…
Here is a fact we all know and almost none of us live by: you are dying, slowly, right now, and so is everyone you love. Death is the one prophecy that never fails…
Here is an uncomfortable but clarifying exercise the Stoics practiced on purpose: live today as if it were your last. Not in a reckless, burn it all down way, but…
When you have people you love in your life, then care about them now because people are not replaceable . It’s all the more reason to show love and care now because…
Everything around us exists in a very delicate balance of a complex network of interactions between us and our environment. When one creature dies, it gives life to…
