EVERYTHING IS A KIND OF DYING

Ryan Holiday, moderator of The Daily Stoic, writes that:

It may seem dark to think about it this way, but it is true. We are constantly dying—dying every day, as Seneca said. Life is a one-way street. Time marches in only one direction. Things are always ending, always coming to a close, or getting closer to one.

Marcus Aurelius knew this, but he didn’t let it get him down. In fact, he found some reassurance in it. “When we cease from activity, or follow a thought to its conclusion,” he observed, “it is a kind of death.” But this doesn’t harm us, he pointed out. In fact, we look forward to many of these cessations and conclusions. “Think about your life,” he said, “childhood, boyhood, youth, old age. Every transformation a kind of dying. Was that so terrible?”

Of course not. It’s just how life is. From one end comes another beginning, nothing lasts forever—nor would we want it otherwise. Instead, we have to accept change, if not embrace it. We have to accept that none of us maintain anything or any form forever. Instead, we are transitioning, always—some quickly, some more slowly.

Everything is tinged with a kind of dying. Everything is a phase, including the life we’re lucky enough to live right now.