Every Hour Counts Just The Same

Nick Scheerbart

Ideally, when I did the website for our app launch I wanted to remind people they are going to die, but I didn't think this would be well received. Most people think that remembering death is morbid rather than liberating.

I have just bought two coins from dailystoic that have made a prominent place on my desk. Memento Mori, remembering that we are going to die, I find a great daily (and more frequent the reminder the better) to treat people better including myself. I need to treat each hour as every hour ticking away.

Do you really want to waste a precious human life sitting for an hour in a meeting that is going nowhere? That is no use to anyone involved?

What if it was your last hour alive? Well should it be any different to this hour, that all count towards death the same.

I read the following from Seneca today which puts it better than I could:

"But we to whom such corruptible bodies have been allotted, nevertheless set eternity before our eyes, and in our hopes grasp at the utmost space of time to which the life of man can be extended, satisfied with no income and with no influence. What can be more shameless or foolish than this? Nothing is enough for us, though we must die some day, or rather, are already dying; for we stand daily nearer the brink, and every hour of time thrusts us on towards the precipice over which we must fall. See how blind our minds are! What I speak of as in the future is happening at this minute, and a large portion of it has already happened; for it consists of our past lives. But we are mistaken in fearing the last day, seeing that each day, as it passes, counts just as much to the credit of death...
...The last hour reaches, but every hour approaches, death."

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