Memento Mori: Why Remembering Death Can Make Life Better

Marcus Aurelius ruled the Roman Empire, and in his private writings - never intended for publication - he repeatedly reminded himself of something simple: he would die. Not as despair. As a tool.

What is memento mori, specifically?

A Latin phrase meaning “remember you will die,” used across Stoic philosophy as a deliberate practice - regularly reminding yourself of your own mortality, not to feel bleak about it, but to use that awareness as a filter for what actually deserves your attention and energy right now.

Why would reminding yourself of death make life better, rather than worse?

Because most people spend enormous energy on things that feel urgent but aren’t actually important - status, minor conflicts, distractions - and forgetting that time is limited makes it easy to keep doing this indefinitely. Remembering mortality cuts through that noise, making it harder to keep prioritizing the trivial over what genuinely matters.

Isn’t this just a way of being morbid or anxious about death?

The Stoics explicitly rejected that reading - Marcus Aurelius wasn’t trying to frighten himself into good behavior through dread. He treated the fact of mortality as neutral information, useful specifically because it’s true, not because it’s frightening. The goal was clarity, not fear.

How did Marcus Aurelius actually use this in daily life?

His personal writings - written as private notes to himself, not as philosophy for an audience - repeatedly return to mortality as a way of checking his own priorities: was he spending his limited time on anger, ego, and status, or on the things he actually valued? He used the reminder as a recurring practical check, not a one-time realization.

Does this idea only work if you’re facing a health crisis or old age?

No - and this is part of what makes it a genuinely useful daily practice rather than something reserved for a crisis. The Stoic version of memento mori is meant to be an ongoing habit of mind, available to anyone at any age, not something that only becomes relevant once mortality feels immediate.

Is there a modern equivalent of this practice?

Many people describe something similar happening naturally after a health scare, a close call, or the death of someone they love - a temporary but genuine shift in what feels important. The Stoic insight is that you don’t need to wait for a crisis to access this clarity; you can practice it deliberately, on an ordinary day. See our guide on what Warren Zevon’s final year teaches us about facing death honestly for a striking modern example of exactly this same practice, arrived at under real circumstances rather than as a philosophical exercise.

How does this connect to actual planning, not just philosophy?

Many people find that thinking concretely about mortality - documenting wishes, having honest conversations, spending time with people who matter - becomes easier once they’ve genuinely sat with the fact of their own limited time, rather than treating it as an abstract, distant idea. See our guide on 50 things to do with your parents while you still can for a very practical version of this same instinct.

A question to take with you

If your time is genuinely limited - which it is, for all of us - what deserves it? Not in the abstract, but specifically: what would you actually spend less time on, starting today, if you took this seriously?

Save my answer to My Final Day Plan → Add a personal reflection

This reflects on Stoic philosophy and Marcus Aurelius’s writings without reproducing his original text - his Meditations are widely available through libraries and public domain archives.