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“Designed to help bring those four key stoic virtues courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom into the real world.”

Last year, I had a very strange near-death experience. I was in Greece, and I went out for a run, and I got stung in the back of the throat by a beat. And so there, for somewhat absurd reasons, my life was flashing before my eyes.

But that was not the first time that that ever happened. One, because I've had

other near-death experiences like that, but also actively force myself to think about my mortality on a regular basis. This is the stowed practice of momentum more. Remembering you are mortal, remembering that you could go at any moment. But one of the ways I do that is when I travel, I try to stop in various semesters. And I've just spent a little time walking around looking at the headstones,

thinking about the people buried there, thinking about the people that have come before us.

“And that's what I want to talk about in today's episode,”

some stoic lessons that I've gathered from semeteries all over the world, where in thinking about death, I changed my life, and I think might be able to change yours. This is one of the most beautiful semeteries in the world, but you know what good it does the people who are buried here? Nothing. There was a guy buried in this cemetery,

250,000 people came to his funeral. I've never even heard of this person. 250,000 people,

but you know what good it did him? No good at all. Marcus really tries to remind us that people who long for posthumous fame, what they forget is that they won't be around to enjoy it. He says, and even if you were, people are still annoying and obnoxious, it's not that special. Marcus really is remembered by history, not because he's strove to be remembered, but because of how he lived his life, what he tried to do with the time that he had,

what he wasn't thinking about his legacy legacy is for everyone but you. This beautiful cemetery, this is for the people who love those people. It doesn't do them any good. But what of the time they wasted, what of the wrong things they've allowed you want to think about how you're spending your time now? Are you living now? Are you appreciating it now? That is the one certainty. It's the one thing that will happen to every person that's ever been born. It's the prophecy

“that never fails. They say, and yet, how many people in this cemetery were surprised by it?”

How many people were caught off guard? How many people thought, oh, I thought I had more time. How many of these people wasted enormous amounts of their time as we all do? Seneca says, we protect our property, we protect our money, and yet we're so frivolous with our time. The one thing we should be the strictest miseries about, he says, we just freely hand out to people. We've let it be wasted because we think we have so much of it. And we don't.

Eventually, we all come to the end and not just eventually could be sooner than you think. Obviously, the thing we all dread most is something happening to our kids. No parent ever wants to bury the child. And unfortunately, it's true. One day our children will die. We ourselves will die. But the stones for me is that simply seeing death as this tragedy, this thing that's out there that could happen to you at some point in the future, says you actually have to think of death

as something that's happening now, says the time that passes belongs to death. So, however,

older kids are, those are years that they'll never get back that you'll never get back. So we

have to spend our time wisely. We have to be with our kids when we're with our kids. When Marcus really tells himself, as you tuck your children in and say to yourself, they may not make it to the morning. What he's trying to do is make sure that he doesn't rush through this thing. Only get to do so many times. In the midst of life, we are in death. As we kill time as time passes, it is killing us and it is gone forever. And so is that five-year-old and six-year-old

and seven-year-old and eight-year-old and eight-year-old will never get that again. So be there for it, while it's here. Death is one thing that we all have in common. It's one thing that equalizes all of us. It's one thing that crosses all language, socioeconomic, cultural, geographic barriers. The even transcends space and time, right? Everyone who ever lived was mortal. And they all faced their own mortality as we will face our mortality. I'm in this cemetery now and most of the

tombstones are in another language. Chinese, Japanese, ancient, Hawaiian, and you're thinking about,

Maybe they thought different things about the afterlife. All the same they had to face this

“unchanging, unavoidable thing. And that's true for Marcus Aurelius, that's true for Seneca,”

that's true for epictetus. They had to come to terms with the fact that, however powerful they were,

they couldn't escape death. Whatever their beliefs about the afterlife were, this life was going to end at some point. And so, in this way, death is a great equalizer. It's a common thing we all have in common. Just as we all have grief and loss in common, it's a thing that, yes, takes this apart. It strips us from our loved ones. It takes people we love, away from us, and ultimately takes us away from people we love. It also brings us together with everyone and

everything that ever lives. So, when the stove's talked about how everything has two handles, that's the other way that you could think about death. Not as something horrible and sad and awful and violent, but as something communitarian, something that unites us, something we all have in common, something transcendent and sacred, then, in that regard. And actually, this cemetery that I'm in right now is a plantation cemetery of workers from everywhere from Spain and Puerto Rico, Korea,

China, Japan, all over the world, people came here, different cultures, different beliefs, different socio-economic backgrounds, but all had one thing in common, obviously trying to provide for their family, trying to make a better life. Many of their descendants still live here in Hawaii. So, death brings us together, but also life brings us together in this cemetery that I'm in here and now, you see all these poles. That's because chickens are roosting here in the graves,

digging little nests and laying eggs. So, both in the midst of life we are in death and the midst of death there is life, but I guess also it's just this idea that none of this last we get chewed up and turned into worm food, but even our tombstones, like this cemetery is right next to a freeway next to a business and remember I once visited a cemetery in Brazil and another one in Milan and they were taking these family tombs and just selling them to new families because they

they had to make room. They were running out of grave space and it's just a reminder that again

the most powerful among us, the most important among us, eventually we just end up taking up space,

“we get in people's way and life goes on and that's something that I think spending time in”

cemeteries reminds us. It's crazy to think, I mean yeah there could be 200 or 330 people ready for 60 to 600. Over how long like do you know when this came in? Well I mean the you figure the mine life here was 1865 to 1930 that's right so 70 years. There's a Samuel Johnson quote like that discovered these old enormous like tombs from these kings in Scotland and he said like in any case they were people who when they died would not have guessed that they would have been forgotten

so soon. The people who died here, the people who buried them, the people who came and visited, you would hope, right, that it would be in better repair than this and yet this is the inevitable process. In meditations Marcus really says like Alexander the Great and his muel driver, they both die, they're both buried in the same ground and the same thing happens to both. Meaning they're both ultimately consumed by worms and to come nothing and their

accomplishments are equalized but yeah the point is it's like not just like you're a coffin and your tombstone and your fence but then you know as we find with Indian burial grounds or all sort like eventually this too, no one even knows this is a cemetery. That was there that was there that you wouldn't know it anymore already, right. Yeah and meditations Marcus really says like those who long for posthumous fame forget that they will be around to enjoy it number one.

But number two he says you also forget that the people in the future will also suck. We stopped in the second of tombstones two cemeteries its famous one boot hill is actually like a tourist attraction that's where some of the participants from the gunfight at the okay corral are buried. It's a mother once it's actually not a super historically accurate cemetery. This is the city cemetery it's down the street a little bit and what I like to do is I like to

come to cemeteries and I like to look for the oldest graves that I could find found one from the 1830s I found one from the 1850s found a bunch of people born during the Civil War a bunch of union veterans of the Civil War some Confederate veterans too but I like to walk through the cemetery it's

always peaceful in the cemetery it's always quiet and I just think about the lives of these people

“had I think about how quickly they were forgotten I also think about what they managed to do in”

their brief lives but I think really what a cemetery is for me is a reminder of how short and

drowned swimming in the sandpanger of river they went for a swim like I did yesterday and it was the last swim that they ever made and so I think momentum worry why I do I'm carried the momentum morning point of my pocket the reason I do that is to remind myself not to take things for granted not to be rushed not to to get upset about things that don't matter this moment now is a gift even if you're in a cramped RV even if you're stuck in traffic even if it's taken longer than

“you thought to just relax calm down life is wonderful life is beautiful even in a cemetery it's”

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and died in 1946 I don't just like to think about what they experience with they saw but I go this is a person with hopes and dreams maybe they had power maybe they had fame maybe they wrote books maybe they were beautiful maybe had an illustrious last name and where are they now they're dead they're buried in this marble box and nobody knows and nobody cared and in meditations marks really just reminds himself he says who remembers the name of the emperor who came before him who remembers

any of these people they're gone and forgotten and this is supposed to humble us and sober us up it's supposed to be that we don't take life for granted but that we also don't prioritize and obsess over the wrong things I'm reminded of this very powerful quote from senator he says at the end of your life you better have something to show for all your years other than a number right what do you actually have to show for not what did you accomplish like how much did you make how powerful did you get

but did you actually live those years I met a man in Austin as in was Richard over ten it was 112 years old when he died that number would be meaningless if he didn't live a full and good life in that time so to me the idea of momentum worries not just hey you could die right now nothing matters it's that you because you could die how do you actually show how do you have

“proof of life for the years that you've been alive proof of life to me that's what momentum”

worries about and so I can't forget it and that makes it have always been with is there people

buried in here from the Spanish flu there people that are buried in here from yellow fever from typhus from malaria all sorts of terrible diseases from from wars from tragedies from violent death was ever present in history and and in the ancient world Marcus really lost I think six children before they reached adulthood death was ever present in our antiseptic safe world today with the advances in modern medicine where we push death away where people die in special homes where

we don't have to think about it let alone see it it's really easy to to to to deny death to deny the reality of this thing that will happen to all of and so for the stoics the idea of momentum worry was a constant reminder and active practice that life is short that we can go at any moment

that we're not in control that we never will be in control and that even if the averages are in your

favorite that doesn't matter for you the individual which is why you can't take life for granted which is why you can't be entitled which is why you can't waste time so you can't take other people or relationships for granted you could leave life right now Marcus really says let that determine what you do and say you think so this is the Kesselis family tomb they came to Bastrip in the 1850s and they built a little building on Main Street which housed a shop that he owned

and he built a house down the street his son will who it this is him that's the father this is

building has changed hands dozens of times in the decades since it left the Kesselis family

which by the way is what happens to all our possessions the things you love the things you care about eventually someone is going to possess them that is to say if they don't throw them away was a story about epictetus he had this lamp that was stolen and you think he'd be upset instead he goes look you can only lose what you have and he goes back and he replaces it the next day was something cheaper but the funny part is that after he died one of his students bought it for a

lot of money he wanted to possess something that epictetus had possessed of course totally missing

“the point of the lesson now again the lesson isn't you should never have anything”

and you shouldn't care about anything you should give away all your possessions like a monk

no it's just a reminder that that as the stoics say we only own this stuff in trust we have it temporarily not just the job not just the house not just the place we currently stand we're operate but everything in our life is only ours for as long as we are lucky to have it I heard someone say and I think about this with where I live on this ranch out not far from here he says the bank is just letting me make payments on it like you don't even own it you have it temporarily

and if you can think about it that way you're not only going to be more insured against the ups and downs in life you're going to know the proper perspective on things it helps me relax with my

children I don't have to take everything so seriously I don't have to stress about everything I

don't own it we remind ourselves that we don't really own this stuff that it's only ours temporarily so the day when we have to give it up whether it's while we're living or at the end of our life we're okay with that we're okay giving it back actually had a friend of mine who died not that

“long ago and he he wrote about the saying I'm ready to give the gift back that's what he was”

saying about his life itself Rachel returned the gift and that's a very stoic idea all of it it's only temporary we only get it for a little bit there's a famous line in an escalist play Agamemnon Cassandra is the prophet that can see the future but she's cursed that no one will ever listen and she says when she comes home knowing that Agamemnon is going to be murdered by his wife she says I can smell the open grave you know she can smell that death is on this person they they're

marked for it but they don't know it this sitting here in this cemetery and they just re-interred or work on this grave someone who's been dead for 65 years we all have that mark of death on us like we we think about this idea like what would I do if I found out I I had cancer if I got a terminal diagnosis what if someone could predict my death but you do have a terminal diagnosis someone can predict your death all of us are mortal the doctor knew with absolute certainty when we were born

that we were going to die it's just that because we feel healthy it's just because the average life span is incredibly long these days in a way that the ancients couldn't have even imagined the average person living to because the infant mortality then was so high and we think we're going to live forever we think we're the exception and we're not it's going to happen for all of us we have to live accordingly we have to make the right decisions as a result we have to cut out the things that are

wasting our time Steve Jobs talked about this in his famous commencement address he was talking about how life is short it's it's uncertain for all of us as it tragically was for him he said it's too short to spend it living somebody else's life following somebody else's trap that's one of my favorite questions from Mark Spreos and Meditation he says you're afraid of death because you won't be able to do this anymore and by this I take it to mean all the indignities and stupid things that we spend our

time doing like you want to live forever so you can go to the DMV more so you can scroll on your phone more so you can hold grudges more so you can covet more things that's not a life worth extending okay

“so I'm not saying that life is meaningless and you should just die I'm saying the opposite I'm saying”

you should try to live a life that is worth being long that's the tragedy Senika says how many people at their end of their life all they have to show for it is a large number that's not what we're after that's not meaningful that's not what philosophy is fighting to try to make us so this decision to cut out the inessential to do what actually matters to live the life we are meant to live to to be brave and to be authentic to be real to chase and value the right things that's what

momentum worry reminds us