Memento Mori
You already have a terminal diagnosis; use it as the deadline that ends procrastination.
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~ongoing to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 94%
Holiday's fifth theme of the good life, and the one he calls among the most essential philosophical practices there is. Every religious and philosophical tradition carries some version of remembering you are mortal. His argument is diagnostic: we procrastinate, deprioritise our health and avoid what we know we should do because we behave as though we have forever. Death is top of the list of things you do not control, and accepting it produces urgency, perspective and clarity. The sharpest form of the claim is that a terminal diagnosis is not hypothetical: at birth the doctor knew with total certainty you would die, and only the date was withheld. Living in rejection of that fact is how a life gets wasted.
Origin
A practice Holiday traces across every religious and philosophical tradition, and specifically to Marcus Aurelius, who wrote that you could leave life right now and let that determine what you do and say and think, in an era when he had buried six children.
Core principles
- 01Death is top of the list of things you do not control.
- 02We procrastinate because we believe we have forever.
- 03You already have a terminal diagnosis; only the date is unknown.
- 04Modern life shelters us from mortality, making the practice more necessary, not less.
- 05The deaths of people we love function as the reminder while we are still here.
How to run it
- 1
Accept the fact rather than the abstraction
State it concretely: the second you were born the doctor knew with a hundred percent certainty that you would die, and you simply do not know when. It could be eight years or eight decades.
Pro tip Death is the only prophecy that never fails.
- 2
Build a daily reminder into the routine
Make the recollection regular rather than waiting for a pandemic, a call from the doctor or a sudden loss to supply the brief moment of clarity.
Pro tip Marcus needed the reminder daily despite living surrounded by death; you need it more, not less.
- 3
Let it determine what you do and say and think now
Apply Marcus's instruction directly: you could leave life right now, so let that govern the current decision, the current argument, the current deferral.
Watch out This is a decision filter, not a licence for recklessness; the point is prioritisation.
- 4
Audit the present moment specifically
Ask the practical question: time is ticking by, right now in this very moment, how am I spending it? Apply it to the health decision, the difficult conversation, the work you keep postponing.
Pro tip Take the specific things you would change on receiving a diagnosis and start doing them now, since the diagnosis already exists.
- 5
Use the loss of others as the reminder
Treat the absence of people you loved as their continued contribution: it reminds you that the same will be true of you, and that none of us get forever.
Pro tip Holiday's framing is that the fact you get tomorrow and someone else does not is a gift not to be taken for granted.
In the wild
Marcus wrote that you could leave life right now and should let that determine what you do and say and think. Holiday notes he wrote it in a world so deadly and unforgiving that he had buried six of his own children, and even then he had to remind himself not to procrastinate, not to think he had forever, and not to take life for granted.
→ If a man surrounded by death needed the daily practice, someone in a modern lifespan bubble who may never see a person die outside a hospital needs it considerably more.
Marcus's last words in Meditations address himself about the play having only three acts, the curtain coming down, and whether he did a good job. In life, dying probably of the plague with his weeping friends around him, he asked them what they were crying about and told them to think about their own lives and do what they could with the time they had left.
→ Holiday offers it as the single message he would leave: none of us get forever, the song ends at some point, so what did you do with the time you got?
Common mistakes
Waiting for a real diagnosis to change anything
People ask what they would do if they got a terminal diagnosis, without noticing they already have one. The reflection stays hypothetical and nothing in the calendar changes.
Living in rejection of the fact
Holiday's claim is direct: to live in ignorance or rejection of your mortality is to set yourself up, more often than not, to waste your life.
Treating it as morbid rather than clarifying
The practice is not about dread. Its output is urgency, perspective and the willingness to prioritise health, relationships and the work that matters.
Is it for you?
Best for
Anyone chronically deferring health, relationships or the work that matters on the assumption that there will be time later.
Not ideal for
People in active grief or health anxiety, for whom sustained mortality focus is likely to amplify distress rather than produce clarity.
From the transcript
“across all religious and philosophical traditions there is some version of the practice of Memento Mori remember you are mortal that life is short”
“why do we procrastinate why do we not prioritize our health why do we not do the stuff that we know we should do it's…”
“the second you were born the doctor knew with a hundred percent certainty that you would die you just didn't know when”
“as they say death is the only prophecy that never fails”
From the episode
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