*Thinking about death can be healthy when it is brief, voluntary, and directed towards living more truthfully. It can create anxiety when it becomes compulsive, overwhelming, or detached from the life that is still here to be lived.*
While some Stoics would take time each day to reflect on their mortality, it was not for the sake of becoming … depressed. Instead, they sought to use mortality to establish the reality check of one’s attentiveness.
Let’s think about it. Mortality serves as a way of determining the relative importance of one’s life goals while taking into account the limited time that we have available. So, the Stoics asked themselves:
If we have limited time here on Earth, what are the things we should focus our attention on? What do we need to release from resentment? What types of conversations, actions, or honest decisions are too important for us to delay until it is too late?
Obviously, this way of thinking cannot be forced on someone. The writings of the ancients simply provide an approach for developing one’s judgment and making it easier to consider death without becoming immobilized by it.
