we all have expiration dates

We all live in denial as we cruise through our lives with regard to the fact that we are going to die eventually some day. We refrain from looking at this truth in the eye, and pretend that our death is not real. But the truth is that we all have expiration dates. From the moment we’re born, our time starts ticking.

We often think, especially when we’re young, that we have a great amount of time in our hand, and we still have many years to live. And that’s why instead of running our days, we let our days run us. We become lazy, unproductive and procrastinate. But the truth is that we never truly know when our time on this planet will run out.

We need to be in constant touch with our own mortality via Memento Mori, a reminder that keeps us aware of the truth that our days are numbered. Only then, we’ll be able to live more fully and seize our days.

The sands of time are passing, and we are a ticking time bomb, inching closer to our death every day, every moment of our lives.  

Marcus Aurelius once alluded to the inevitability of death in a peculiar meditation:  

The stench of decay. Rotting meat in a bag.

Look at it clearly. If you can.

Here, he was comparing life to that stench and the rotten meat in the skin bag to us.

It may come off as morbid on the surface, but it is an essential truth that we need to face.

We are like the burning candles, withering flowers and rotting fruits as depicted by the Dutch Golden Age artists of the 17th century who used still-life as moral instruction.

So, stop fooling around and live to the fullest today. Carpe Diem.

Enjoy the present moments and make your mark, today and every day that you get to live.

Do the work of a human being, and enjoy the treasures that life offers to us every day. Have fun with it as long as it is with us.