(This is Part 5 of the Memento Mori Meditations Guide. If you haven’t already, read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4 before reading this one)
Last time I talked about having your own Memento Mori phrase to use during the day for on-the-spot Memento Mori meditations. It was all about that instant benefit of being reminded of your mortality, about snapping yourself out of complacency and back into life.
This time, I want to talk about one way to use Memento Mori meditations that is not short-term or instant, and does not focus on the present moment. I want to talk about how Memento Mori meditations can help you organize your life.
I don’t want to make this more complicated than it should be, so instead of explaining it through some kind of system, I will try to explain it through a personal example that you will hopefully be able to translate into your own life.
I’ve been a fan of MMA (mixed martial arts) for almost 14 years.
When I say that I am a fan of it, I don’t mean a casual fan. It’s the only sport that I've really been following for the past 14 years. The only sport that I care about. And, until I started being more strict with how I spend my time and attention, I was that hardcore fan that watches every single fight, every press conference, knows the history of the sport, etc. I was basically like an MMA journalist who is not getting paid to do it.
Like most people, I got into MMA because of the striking aspect of it. But around 7 years ago, I finally started appreciating the "ground game," or the grappling aspect of MMA. More precisely, I started to get interested in BJJ, Brazilian Jiu Jutsu.
As time went on, I started to fall in love with BJJ. I was fascinated with this martial art that they like to call "human chess." At that time, there was no proper BJJ club in my home town, so there was really no opportunity for me to start training. For years, it remained just a great desire of mine.
What does all of this have to do with Memento Mori Meditations and organizing your life?
Well, if I just told you that I wanted to start training BJJ, you would think that it’s the same as when people say that they "want" to start going to the gym, they "want" to lose weight, they "want" to learn that new language, they "want" to read more. But they don’t really want it, it’s mostly empty talk.
I didn’t "want" to start training BJJ. I can genuinely say that it has been one of my biggest dreams for the past 5 years.
And now, when I finally have the opportunity and the conditions to do it, I've decided that I am not going to. And it was Memento Mori meditations that helped me make this decision.
I am now living somewhere else. Somewhere where there are plenty of real, legitimate BJJ clubs.
I have also come to the point in my life where I have the freedom to structure my daily and weekly schedule the way I want to.
I finally have the opportunity to start training BJJ.
But something that I also have, like every other human being, is limited time in my day and limited days in my life. Because of meditating on death daily for the past 1000+ days, I am aware of this fact at all times. And I am especially aware of it when organizing my time.
So how do I organize my limited time in the day so that I make sure that I am at peace with having limited days left, whether it’s 5 more days or 10,000 more days?
This is where Memento Mori meditations come into play.
The following is my thought process while using Memento Mori meditations to organize the limited life that I have left. I hope that it’s not too chaotic and that you can recognize the structure in it. The activities that I am discussing and my personal preferences don’t matter. The reasoning behind my choices is something that can be applied to the life of any human who still hasn’t figured out the secret to immortality.
Learning BJJ is one of my dreams. But it’s not my only dream. And it’s not my biggest dream.
I want to write. I want to write as much as humanly possible.
At this point, it’s not only a dream and a passion.
I consider it my duty and responsibility to write something that, when it’s time, two boys who are now across the world from me will read, and it will encourage them to take life and all of its challenges head on.
But it’s not like I can actually spend all of my time writing.
There is nothing for someone to write about if one doesn’t read, think, and, by far most importantly, if one doesn’t live.
If I am to write, I must live.
I’ve had plenty of time to read and think for the past 2 years while being a prisoner in my own home. But most of my living was done inside my mind, and my soul, if you will.
Now, I dedicate a certain amount of time every day to reading. And I spend pretty much my whole day either actively or passively thinking about things that I am writing about or that I want to write.
There are also other things in my life that I simply have to do.
In the time I have left, I want to live.
But what does it mean "to live"?
For me, it means engaging with the world around me. It’s about trying new things, having new experiences, and hopefully meeting new people in the process.
Doesn’t BJJ involve all of these things? Yes, it does. But it also involves making a commitment. It is not something that can be done whenever you feel like it, but rather something that must be done on a regular basis and over hundreds, if not thousands, of hours. It also involves all of the time dedicated to it being spent indoors, which is something that, because of my past experience, I try to limit as much as I can.
It all comes down to this:
Even though I’ve considered it a dream of mine, if I was on my death bed, I would be okay with never learning BJJ.
If I was on my death bed and I was able to choose between learning BJJ or having those thousands of hours spent engaging with the world around me and exploring it in different ways, I would choose the latter.
When faced with the idea of death, I realize what my ultimate motivation for wanting to learn BJJ is: learning a highly technical and potentially lethal skill would make me, in my eyes, a more impressive individual.
That same idea of death reveals to me that, if my life was to end tomorrow, I would be satisfied with being a less impressive, or less badass version of myself, but richer in experiences, relationships, and hours spent out in the sun.
If I am to live each day as a separate life, which is my ultimate goal, there is no place for BJJ in my vision of my day as a whole, fulfilled life. At least not right now.
And this is how I organized my life and decided to let go of one of my dreams, at least for now, by using Memento Mori meditations.
I am guessing some of you will think that this is a bit of an extreme way for someone to look at how they are spending their time. And I would agree with you.
Having a strong sense of what I want to do with my life, combined with some pretty extreme personal experiences, and the fact that I remind myself daily of my time here being limited, all resulted in me having an extreme attitude towards how I spend my time.
I am not telling you to be equally extreme and strict with your time.
But since you are reading this, I’m guessing you are someone who wants to use Memento Mori meditations to enhance their life. I’m guessing you are someone who wants to do something that wise people have done since antiquity: you want to remember that you are going to die so that you don’t forget to live.
If that’s the case, no matter how extreme you want to be about this or not, what is true for me is true for you too – your time here is limited and you don’t know how much of it you have left.
Since you have limited time in your day and limited days in your life, what are the things that you would be okay with not doing or trying if you were on your death bed? And what are the things that, if you neglected them, you wouldn’t be able to have a peaceful end?
The things that you just thought about deserve the same amount of attention whether you have 5 days or 50 years left.
Now, with that realization, go and live. I know I’m going to.
Thank you for reading.
P.S. Two essays that are very much related to this topic and would probably help you understand this thought process even better are “How Death Helped Me Find Out Who I Am” and “How to Live Each Day as a Separate Life.”
They are both “members essays” so if you are a paid supporter or a member of Sisyphus Society you can read them right away. If not, you can sing up for a free trial of paid Existential Espresso to see if they, and other members essays are worth 5$ per month.
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