Swizec Teller - a geek with a hatswizec.com

Senior Mindset Book

Get promoted, earn a bigger salary, work for top companies

Senior Engineer Mindset cover
Learn more

    Do you memento mori?

    Today I read a nice post about the 6 myths that stand in your way. And there was one that stood out the most

    Myth: There is time

    Reality: You have less time now than you have ever had. You have less time now than you had an hour ago. You are nearer to your death than you have ever been. Plan thoroughly, but donโ€™t wait too long before taking action.

    And then when you remember that Steve Jobs had a speech devoted almost completely to this notion of memento mori.

    Hell, the Romans came up with the whole memento mori crap far far ago ... I forget how the tradition went, but they used to punch winning generals in the face or something ... or was it that a slave was following them through the whole festivity whispering "memento mori" in their ear. Something like that.

    Then there's that tradition in greek weedings (judging from Big Fat Greek Wedding) where the bride is thrown off her chair - just to remind her she's mortal too.

    And way back when some smart poetry geek came up with the idea of Carpe Diem (later transformed to Carpe Noctem and Carpe Pijem, the slovene version). Again basically the same concept!

    Then there's an interesting story I read on a forum once, it happened to a forumite's cousin or somesuch:

    She was a lass, around 23 years of age. Two lovely children, a loving husband, nice house and so on. One day they have a fight over something extremely mundane and boring. She gets pissed off and storms out of the house ... only to be mowed down by a truck.

    To death.

    So yeah, I know as humans we like to think we're something special, that each and everyone of us is a special little snowflake unique and wonderful in their own right.

    Well you're not. You too will die, today, tomorrow, in an hour, it doesn't matter.

    And nothing of value will be lost!

    Nothing!

    Nobody will care, absolutely nobody.

    I think people often forget these things and spend their whole lives doing boring shit they don't care about. Stop that!

    For the end, a quote from Anthony de Mello:

    Most people, even though they donโ€™t know it, are asleep. Theyโ€™re born asleep, they marry in their sleep, they breed children in their sleep, they die in their sleep without ever waking up

    But that just brings to mind this:

    I dunno, just remember that whatever you do, all your life, you're on the verge of imminent death. Never forget.

    Reblog this post [with Zemanta]
    Published on April 21st, 2010 in Carpe Diem, Carpe Noctem, Death, food for thought, life, Steve Jobs, Uncategorized

    Did you enjoy this article?

    Continue reading about Do you memento mori?

    Semantically similar articles hand-picked by GPT-4

    Senior Mindset Book

    Get promoted, earn a bigger salary, work for top companies

    Learn more

    Have a burning question that you think I can answer? Hit me up on twitter and I'll do my best.

    Who am I and who do I help? I'm Swizec Teller and I turn coders into engineers with "Raw and honest from the heart!" writing. No bullshit. Real insights into the career and skills of a modern software engineer.

    Want to become a true senior engineer? Take ownership, have autonomy, and be a force multiplier on your team. The Senior Engineer Mindset ebook can help ๐Ÿ‘‰ swizec.com/senior-mindset. These are the shifts in mindset that unlocked my career.

    Curious about Serverless and the modern backend? Check out Serverless Handbook, for frontend engineers ๐Ÿ‘‰ ServerlessHandbook.dev

    Want to Stop copy pasting D3 examples and create data visualizations of your own? Learn how to build scalable dataviz React components your whole team can understand with React for Data Visualization

    Want to get my best emails on JavaScript, React, Serverless, Fullstack Web, or Indie Hacking? Check out swizec.com/collections

    Did someone amazing share this letter with you? Wonderful! You can sign up for my weekly letters for software engineers on their path to greatness, here: swizec.com/blog

    Want to brush up on your modern JavaScript syntax? Check out my interactive cheatsheet: es6cheatsheet.com

    By the way, just in case no one has told you it yet today: I love and appreciate you for who you are โค๏ธ

    Created by Swizec with โค๏ธ