Stoic Practice: Consider Your Death

Those who cling to life, who are paranoid about the shortening of their final years, will never be at peace. Worrying about death will not matter. You will die like everyone else. The wealthy and poor, young and old, wise and foolish, will all perish.

Reflect on all the ways you might die. Your neck could be slit, your tongue ripped out. You could wither into a shaking husk in bed, fall and snap your neck, or collapse on a carpet.

Think about the generations who came before you: kings clothed in gold, lovers clutched in each other’s arms, warriors who swung until their lungs burned out, gravediggers who dug, slaves who grunted in the low fields, priests who preached, astronauts who orbited. All those who loved and suffered, toiled and rose to extraordinary powers, are no more. From your birth, you’re destined to the graves of the fallen. Your time drifts away with every breath.