Memento Mori: Ancient Secret to Living a Great Life

0:07Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor podcast. I'm your host, Rob Dial. If you have not yet done so, hit that subscribe button so you never miss another podcast episode. And if you're out there and you love this podcast, do me a favor, share it with one person today so that we can impact more people's lives. That's ultimately all I'm really trying to do here. Today, I'm gonna be talking about an ancient practice to help you live a really, really great life. But before we do, I want you to picture this, okay? I want you to picture that you go into your doctor's office for a yearly checkup, and the doctor comes in, after your checkup and is looking at some papers, closes the door and opens up a folder and says, hey, there's no real easy way to tell you this, but you only have one year left to live.

0:53I'm 100 % sure you've only got one year left to live. If you had that happen to you, and maybe some of you guys have had that happen to you, how fast would the walls of your carefully constructed life come crashing down? Like how quickly would everything change for you? Those obligations that you felt are so necessary and they stress you out and you've got to rush towards those grudges towards other people that you have been keeping alive for 10 or 15 years, the worries about who said what and what other people will think of you. what would be the same in your life after that day? And then what would change in your life after that day?

1:39And you would walk out of that doctor's office a completely different person when you walked in. And things might feel different. Like you might exhale real deeply when you get out there and you realize that the sun is hitting your face. And you might feel the sun on your skin more than you've ever felt the sun on your skin. You might notice how the air feels on your skin, and how it feels to breathe in deeply, something inside of you would probably wake up because you suddenly see everything in ultra high definition. Like you're more present to the little things in your life than you probably have been since childhood.

2:16And so this idea of the impending death that we all have coming for us is the idea of memento mori, which is an ancient stoic reminder. Momento mori, when you look at it, momento means remember or keep in mind. And mori means to die. And basically what it translates to is remember that you must die. And so Stoicism, which is a ancient Greek philosophy that's been around for a few thousand years, teaches wisdom and virtue and how to have inner peace all by focusing on only what you can control and then accepting the things that you cannot control. And the Stoics weren't trying to depress you or depress themselves by saying, hey, memento mori, remember you're going to die.

3:03What they're really trying to do is to wake you up more than anything else. The point of the whole thing is just to wake up from the sleepwalking that we all do through life. The automatic, well, we wake up, do the same thing, same stuff every single day. And it's basically to get out of your head, to get out of your worries, to get out of your stress, and to feel the actual present moment, to be as present as you possibly can. And I wanted to talk about this today because this morning, Lauren and I and the baby, we went to go get breakfast. And on the way to breakfast, we noticed that there was a, the route that we take, there was a funeral that was going on.

3:45That was just, you could see it from the side of the road. We passed this graveyard. There's a funeral that was going on. And we noticed it as we were going by, we didn't really say anything. And then as we were coming back, we noticed that everything was starting to end with the funeral. And so we had this conversation about, isn't that crazy? Like, look at thousands of headstones. There's thousands, it's huge, this graveyard that we go past. There's thousands of gravestones that are there. And it's like, or headstones. And we're sitting there looking at them. We're like, that's crazy. Like, we're all going to be there.

4:20there's no way around it. We're all going to be there one day. And so then we had this conversation about like, memento mori and just remembering death. And so I was asking her like, how often do you think about death? She's like, pretty often. How often do you think about death? And I was like, actually pretty often as well. And we started talking about the idea of how everything is just going to disappear. Like I remember when I went to my 10 day silent meditation retreat years ago, they just basically said that this Buddhism word that they use is anicca, which is just basically like everything is just impermanent.

4:55Everything is going to be disappearing at some point in time. I'm going to be gone. The house that I'm recording this in is going to be gone. My microphone is going to be gone. You're going to be gone. Camera that I'm recording this on, everything is going to be gone. And to just remember that everything is impermanent. And so when you look at Memento Mori and the impermanence of everything, death and thinking about death, death itself might be the most important part of life, which is kind of weird to say, I guess. But without death, life would just be this infinite journey. Like imagine reading a book that never ends.

5:30Like there's no climax, there's no resolution, there's no reason to care about the next page because there's always more. That's like not that exciting if you think about it. Like life would be that way without having our mortality somewhere in the distant future that we distant or close future. We don't know. And so it's like, we're not endless, you know, and we are going to be having it end at some point in time. And death, if you think about it, if you use it the right way, can be the main thing that gives your life meaning. And if you've ever read, there's a really great book that I recommend you read.

6:05It's by Marcus Aurelius, who was one of the great Roman emperors, and it's called Meditations. And it's actually his own personal journal. And they actually, when he passed away, his personal journal was supposed to be burned, but they turned it into a book. So you can actually read the personal journal of a Stoic, Marcus Aurelius, one of the greatest emperors of Rome and considered one of the kindest emperors of Rome compared to some of the other ones that are out there. And you can read through his journal and you realize this man ruled the largest empire on earth. He was at that point in time, the most powerful human alive.

6:43And you can still see in his journal that he still wrestled with all of the same exact anxieties that you and I do. And he wrote in this journal that was never meant for you and I to be able to read. He wrote, you could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do, say, and think. So he didn't say, you know, someday you're going to die. He said, you could right now. You know, like the visual I think of is like a sword that's just like rocking back and forth over a thread. And it's always hanging close to that thread. And you never know when that thing is going to be dropping. It's always that close.

7:19And so it's really important to think about your own death and have it notched because people can be like, oh my God, that stressed me out so much. but you can think about it in a different perspective to give you more meaning. But when you think about it that way, you also think about, oh my God, well, that means that everybody that I love is also going to die. They might do it before me. They might do it after me. I have no idea. So your death is certain, but also everybody else that you loves, death is certain. Your partner, your parents, your children, that's a hard one to swallow, isn't it?

7:54Hopefully it happens after hours, your best friend, and you don't have any idea when it's going to happen. And that's not to be morbid. It's really to bring as much clarity as possible to your life. It strips the illusion of someday away. Like if you've ever had somebody that you're close to or someone that you know well pass away, it's like that day and the next few days, like the next week, it's like things kind of become way more clear for you. Like you wake up out of the haze that you're in and you're like, man, maybe I should make some changes in my life. Like it makes everything more urgent.

8:29It makes love more urgent. And Seneca, who is also a Roman Stoic, in his journal wrote to himself. He said, you know, let us, as if he's talking to himself, him and himself, let us prepare our minds as if we'd come to the very end of life, let us not postpone anything. And so, you know, if you think about that, like, do you, have you been thinking to yourself, like, maybe I should, maybe I should tell my husband how proud I am of him because I think about it all the time. Well, if you do, then do it today. Do you think to yourself, like, I really think maybe I should apologize to my sister. And you've been thinking about that for a little while, do it today.

9:07You know, if you want to say, I love you, even though you're terrified to say, I love you to somebody, maybe it's the first time do it today. Because one day, all of those words, all of the things that you want to say will be 100 % impossible to speak. And so the thing about, the reason why I think this is so important is because I remember, and I've spoken about this kind of on the podcast before, but I remember, you know, my father passed away when I was 15. And I remember being in the, you know, the place where they held the funeral, the inside before everybody else came in. And it was a few hours before and we were in this small room and I remember sitting on the sofa right next to his casket.

9:45I was looking at him and I remember like just fully full transparency. I remember my father had jaundice before he passed away. So we had really yellow skin. And so they like tried to put makeup on him to make it not look that way. And I was like, this doesn't even look like him. But I remember looking at him and sitting there and be like, holy shit, this is the first person that I've ever known and been close to that's actually passed away. And I remember sitting there and being like, I got it. This makes sense. Like this life thing makes sense to me. It was like I was living in a haze for all 15 years.

10:20And I don't remember a whole lot of 15 years before. But as soon as that day happened, everything became clear. And it was the, I would say it was the worst day of my life and also the best day of my life. The reason why it was the best day of my life because it woke me up to get your shit together at 15 years old. And I remember three weeks after my father passed away, my mom was having a conversation with my sister and I, and she's like, well, what do you think about your father's death? I was 15 years old. I remember saying, I think that if dad would understand how much good is going to come from this, that I will make sure of it, he would be okay with dying.

10:52And that's been my mission ever since that day, you know, over 25 years later. And so I had this idea and I understood that point, all of this is going to end. You better live the best fucking life that you can. Like, don't leave anything undone. Don't leave anything unsaid. As we look through this, like, how can you actually start to put this into your life? Like, this wasn't just a theory. This was something that they practiced throughout their day. And so the first thing that you got to think about is having some sort of morning thought. It doesn't have to be a meditation. It could be a meditation.

11:21It could be just while you're drinking your coffee. You know, when you wake up, before you touch your phone, you remind yourself, oh my God, I just woke up. Like I have been given another day. For years, I used to wake up, my alarm would go off and I'd be like, oh shit, I got to wake up. No, it's like, oh my God, I have been given another day. Today is not owed to me. You look at the sunlight that's kind of spilling through the blinds and you imagine like, what if this is the last morning sunlight I ever see? And you let that feeling of like, okay, I'm going to make the most of this day. Let that feeling shape your entire morning.

11:55Another thing that you can do that's a practice is called the empty chair practice, which is where you sit at a table with an empty chair in front of you and you imagine that someone that you love is sitting there and tomorrow they won't be there. They're gone. What do you want to say to them? Write down everything with pen and paper, whatever you want to say to them, and then say it out loud to that empty chair. You know, if you're nervous, if your voice shakes, whatever it is, practice with an empty chair and let that thought of what if that chair was empty and it's empty because they're not there anymore tomorrow?

12:28What would I say to them today? Another thing that you can do is called the reverse calendar. And so instead of planning your life forward, which I do think is important, start backwards. Like give yourself a fictional death date, like a year from today, 12 months, 365 days from today. If that was the case, what would suddenly become irrelevant in your life? What suddenly becomes extremely urgent in your life? And then map out the months between now and that day and what you're going to do, what's important to you, what you're absolutely going to make sure that you accomplish. And then at the end of your night, you just do a nightly audit.

13:06So before bed, you just simply think to yourself, if today were the final page in my book, would I be proud of this chapter? And you don't ask this question to punish yourself because that's what a lot of people will do. oh my god I didn't take today and do as much I could have and then you start to guilt yourself and shame yourself and all that no no you don't ask the question to punish yourself you use it so that you can course correct tomorrow and you're course correcting every night until you start to build out perfect days for yourself and so when you look at this like the reason why I like to talk about this is because there's a lot of people like one of the number one fears like that number one fear goes between one and two I guess there's like public speaking and death are those two things.

13:49If so many people are afraid of death, I'm not afraid of death as much as I am as a life that's unlived. Inside of the book, The Five Regrets of the Dying, the number one most documented regret of people who are dying and they're on their deathbed is that I wish I lived a life that was true to myself and not the life that others expected of me. I wish I lived a life that was true to myself and not the life that other people expected of me. People don't regret dying. They regret not really living. They regret trading their days for approval or comfort or routine while the clock was just slowly ticking in the background.

14:30Death is not the thief of your life. It doesn't steal your life away. Distraction steals your life away. Being passive to everything steals your life away. Pretending that you have more time steals your life away. laziness steals your life away. Caring about other people's opinion steals your life away. Having the fear of failure, the fear of rejection steals your life away. It's not death that steals your life away. It's just the bookend of it. And so the urgency is if you really let momentum mori sink in and you don't get depressed about it and you actually start to feel it, you'll stop waiting for the right moment because you know there might not be another moment.

15:10Like you stop, that you start treating people that you love like these like finite miracles that they are that are just sitting in front of you. Like you look at a sunset instead of looking at your phone and trying to take pictures of it like you just look at it with real awe like taking in the changing colors because you know this might be your last sunset that you ever see. Because one morning you'll wake up and it will be the last sunrise and it'll be the last sunset that you ever see. You're not going to get a notification on your phone that tells you. There's no countdown clock that you get to see.

15:44There's no warning at all. And when that day comes and you actually are there, the goal is not to be fearless about death. It's to be so present and so awake and so alive in everything that you do that you can look at it and you can be at the end. You can say, hmm, I didn't waste it. And so memento mori in remembering this, it's not a curse. Death is not a curse. It's not a momentum or in remembering. It's not a threat. It's more of a, it's more of like a compass that's pointing you towards what matters in your life and pointing you away from all of the noise. So that's what I got for you for today's episode.

16:21If you love this episode, please share it on your Instagram stories. Tag me in at Rob Dial, Jr. R-O-B-D-I-A-L-J-R. And if you want to learn more about coaching with me outside of the podcast, you can go to coachwithrob.com. Once again, coachwithrob.com. And with that, I'm going to leave you the same way I leave you every single episode. Make it your mission to make somebody else's day better. I appreciate you and I hope that you have an amazing day.