Memento Mori: Death As a Teacher and Guide For Navigating Life

At the outset of this year, none of us could have predicted where we’d be sitting in body, mind, and spirit at the end of 2020. We’ve collectively faced a lot; challenge, loss, restriction, transitions, decisions. I know there’s a sense of relief to be turning the calendar page and welcoming in a new year.

At the same time, I have heard throughout the year people acknowledging their own personal silver linings that have appeared in the dark clouds. Things like more time with family, opportunity to change careers, elimination of a commute, increased focus on health, and even in some cases, businesses that are booming.

What really strikes me though, is the frequency with which I hear from clients, family, and friends that they have made a key realization or observation about themselves or their lives. I’m hearing about big aha moments where people have finally come to conclusions that have eluded them for years. I’m also hearing from people who have crystalized a real sense of what’s truly personally meaningful. I have experienced this too. It feels like being in a learning accelerator in the School of Life, albeit an uncomfortable one.

In considering what is the driving force of these revelations, I considered a few options. Perhaps it had to do with the extra time that was uncovered for some, whether that came from working from home or from being out of work entirely. Maybe it was the elimination of distractions from going out to dinner, shopping, large social events. Perhaps extra time with family and close friends spurred conversations, experiences, or challenges that shifted mindsets. It may be all of these things, but I would also offer another option that in my opinion may be a real driving force: we’ve been faced with death.

Contemporary American culture does not have embedded practices around contemplating mortality. It can feel like quite the opposite, youth is obsessively glorified. Our fear of getting older causes us to avoid the inevitable, which is as I once heard someone remark, “we’re all in the queue.”

There are current and historical practices of contemplating mortality and utilizing death as a lens with which to create a meaningful life. The concept of “memento mori” or, remember that you will die, can be traced back at least to the time of Socrates and it is said that in ancient Rome, generals would employ the services of a slave with no other job than in times of peak victory to whisper in the general’s ear “remember thou art mortal.” Stoic philosophers have also written extensively on the subject.

“Let us prepare our minds as if we’d come to the very end of life. Let us postpone nothing. 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

At the same time, Buddhism developed a similar practice of maranasati or mindfulness of death. In addition to reflecting on broad concepts of impermanence, it is believed that the Buddha encouraged his followers to meditate in or near graveyards. Even today, in Bhutan, there’s a belief that contemplating death five times a day is a secret to contentment.

If 2020 has brought perspective because we’ve been confronted with mortality, what might we gain if we habituated a contemplative practice around the subject?

Some possibilities might be a greater acceptance of life just as is and an enhanced sense of gratitude for every miracle of a day. Acknowledging my own mortality has helped me distill down to the essence of what I feel is truly important and the daily process of remembering death helps me continue to make aligned choices. I fall out of balance all the time but asking myself some questions like the following helps me get back to what’s true to me.

1. At the end of my life, what do I want to look back and say I focused my time and energy on?

2. What kind of legacy do I want to leave?

3. Will I regret this decision (doing or not doing) at the end of my life?

I am hopeful for brighter days ahead but as we turn the page to 2021, there is one thing that I want to take with me from 2020, Memento Mori.