Most mantras or affirmations we recite are positive and life-affirming.
And that is how it should be! I think if we all practiced more self-love and compassion the world would be a better place. Kumbaya.
Yet I am going to suggest you add one more mantra to your rotation. You may resist, though, because it’s death-affirming. But hear me out.
Affirming your mortality, the fact that someday your life will end, can be a way to live with greater serenity, acceptance, and motivation.
I remember I will die
The Latin phrase, Memento Mori, is a poetic way of saying, I remember I will die. It can be used anytime, anywhere. I say it when I need an intervention:
That’s enough screen time, memento mori.”
Cate North
Or when I’m driving, and another driver does something that used to put me in a rage:
“Memento Mori. I remember I will die, and I’d rather it not be now.”
Cate North
Memento Mori is a mainstay of the ancient philosophy of Stoicism, but the concept of remembering our mortality is a concept in other traditions as well.
“Let us balance life’s books each day…The one who puts the finishing touches on their life each day is never short of time.”
Seneca
Memento Mori and Memento Vivere
A regular Memento Mori recitation can remind us to keep a healthy awareness of the limited time we all have, at least in this realm on earth as we know it. Thinking about our death seems fearful, but I have found that reflecting on my mortality makes me less fearful of dying and more grateful for and engaged in living.
Memento Mori can remind us to be intentional about how we spend our time, which is how we spend our life. The flip side of this awareness coin is Memento Vivere—I remember to live.
“You could leave life right now.
Marcus Aurelius
Let that determine what you do and say and think.”
In current, modern times, I look at Sister Theresa Aletheia Noble of the Daughters of St. Paul, an order with a mission to bring the spiritual tradition of Memento Mori into the 21st century. In an interview with The New York Times she said,
“We try to suppress the thought of death, or escape it, or run away from it because we think that’s where we’ll find happiness. But it’s actually in facing the darkest realities of life that we find light in them.”
Sister Theresa Aletheia Noble
Advanced cancer patients face a dark reality every day, which is why finding whatever light we can is so important.
Our growing detachment from dying
We are becoming detached from death. Medical advances are allowing us to survive life-threatening diseases or accidents. We are living longer. If we think at all about dying, it’s something to be pushed away. It’s not until we reach some point in our fifties or sixties and begin to realize we have more time behind us than ahead of us that we give it any thoughtful consideration.
Young people may not have a sense of urgency about their lifetime, but for them, adopting a Memento Mori practice can provide some motivation and inspiration to take action on goals and dreams at the time when they have the greatest mental and physical capacity to attain them. I wish I had practiced Memento Mori at that juncture in my life, when I frivolously and foolishly wasted so many precious hours. This, of course, is time that I can never get back. It’s forever lost. That is the power and potential of adopting memento mori as your own mantra, no matter what your age or circumstances might be.
Thinking about mortality doesn’t have to be morbid or depressing. It can be viewed as a path to freedom, and a source of motivation—to live more fearlessly and purposefully. I recite Memento Mori because it instantly awakens me and prompts this important question: