Memento Mori – Visualize your own death.
We often live our life’s like we are about to live forever. We procrastinate and we put the most important things we should do aside like we have an endless possibility of doing those things in the future. Time is probably endless, however, our consciousness lives on this planet called earth, and it’s most likely not. Knowing that, our focus, the way we see life change.
Although thinking about death it’s a taboo topic, that people think brings bad feelings like sadness… However, on contrary is what happens. By visualizing your own death you can actually experience positive effects like gratitude and liberation.
All human fears, come from the fear of death. This is a good reason for us to try not to think about death. However, Is this a good approach? I would say knowing that we are gonna die one day, make us rethink what is important for us. The meditation on death helps us focus on what is important in life!
Live in the present moment.
We can get hit by a bus today or die tomorrow from a heart attack, we really don’t know. However I believe we should live our lives with the idea in our mind that life can be very short and we may not have the time to do everything we wish one day, we only have this day, the present moment, and nothing else, so we should make the most of it and appreciate it.
Motivation for action.
Stoics have this meditation (memento mori) on death that works like a reality check and makes us feel alive now and be more grateful that we have this moment right now, instead of being sad about why we don’t have what we deserve at this moment. The focus change from empty hope to action.
Doesn’t mater how great you are, we all die!
If you knew that your life will end a month from now, would you waste your time, like you probably do right now? What would you want to accomplish before you die, what would you like to tell someone before the day comes?
On a long enough timeline, the survivor rate for everyone drops to zero – Fight Club quote
One of my favorite scenes in the movie Fight Club, was when Tyler points a gun at one seller and asks him: What did you study before? What did you want to be? The seller says… I wanted to be a veterinarian… Then Tyler says to him: I know where you live… if you are not on your way to becoming a veterinarian in six weeks, you’ll be dead!
Makes you focus on what’s important in your life.
You’ll take more action, but not only that… You’ll take the right action. When you know and think about death, you realize that we as the human species are not indestructible. We start to prioritize what’s more important for us and instead of losing our energy and time thinking about unnecessary stuff, we can focus on what is important for us. We are aware of our own death, and that it can be unexpected. Then we start to prioritize our beliefs and actions. What we want and need to do in our life, becomes clearer while we are on this moving ball, looking planet.
Thinking about death, liberate you.
The non-stop masturbation of thoughts in our mind, that we do in our life, comes from thinking we should do everything right, anxieties about stuff we should do, insecurities, and problems we have… We think like we’re gonna live forever and all this matters more than the actual living. All this won’t matter once you are dead! Knowing you may die anytime and think about it, liberates you from caring too much about some insignificant stuff we spend our energy on.
You will be more grateful.
How you cannot be grateful for this moment, right now, when you know that you are alive and you have a chance to experience the beauty of living? You are here now and living… not every spermatozoid (sorry for calling you like that) could experience life as you do. You are one of them. Be grateful for what you have as well, like your body! You probably have two arms, two legs, and hopefully, one brain as well… Some people may have one arm or one leg, so you should be grateful even for just having that because for some people this is everything.
My point is.. even if we don’t have a nice car, partner, or house. We still can find something to be grateful for.. Meditation on death every day makes you more grateful to be alive.
You can die at any time, however, you are here reading my blog post. That means you are alive, so be grateful for that!
Start to meditate on your death.
Incorporating meditation into your lifestyle will have a lot of positive benefits. We already know what are those benefits. However, we should make it our habit, if we want to experience those benefits.
I found one death meditation on YouTube that I think is good. Short enough to not overwhelm you and stop you from doing it.
One book recommendation on the topic will be: Seneca – On the shortness of life
