MEMENTO MORI: REMEMBER YOU WILL DIE
This Is Your Life and it's Ending One Minute at a Time.
One day, you’ll be gone. To wherever, whatever is next. Maybe it’s the void? Maybe it’s nothing? It doesn’t matter. You won’t be here.
Knowing that changes the game. No more pretending you have time. No more tomorrows stacked on tomorrows. You have today. How do you go about not wasting your life?
Today
Here’s what today might look like:
Work
Kids
Cooking, cleaning
Errands
Fixing the wobbly table leg
You don’t get to skip these. You probably don’t get to delegate them. These are yours. Own them.
Make a list. A long, terrifying, overwhelming list. Start ticking things off. Tick off one thing, then another. Keep going until it’s done, or you’re too tired to stand.
Distractions
At the end of the day, you’ll sit. You’ll collapse. You’ll scroll TikTok, binge Netflix, queue up Youtube. Maybe soak in a bath, entrench yourself on the sofa and veg out. You'll try to reconcile the day by numbing your brain.
That’s fine.
But if that’s all you do, every night, what are you doing with your life?
You don’t get a refund at the end. No rollover minutes for time wasted. This is all there is.
4,000 Weeks
You’ve got 4,000 weeks, give or take. That’s the average lifespan. And the title of
’s book.Take your age. Multiply it by 52. Subtract that number from 4,000. That’s what’s left. If you're lucky.
Not enough? Exactly. Time doesn’t slow down. It accelerates. Weeks vanish. Years disappear. You’ll wake up one day and realise you’re at the tipping point.
I’m there. Halfway through my 4,000 weeks. That’s why they call it a midlife crisis. Mine arrived as scheduled.
The Enemy
Mortality isn't an abstract concept. It's a deadline.
Mortality isn't the enemy. Fear isn't the enemy.
The enemy is apathy. And it's a pandemic.
Apathy is that little voice that says, “What’s the point?” It’s the slow, creeping rot that turns “I’ll do it tomorrow” into “It’s too late.”
It’s the reason we scroll, we binge, we avoid, we numb ourselves into oblivion.
Apathy isn’t laziness. It’s not even about being tired. It’s about that sinking feeling that nothing you do will matter, so why bother? It’s the sneaky, silent killer of ambition, creativity, and purpose.
We’ve normalised it. We’ve built an entire culture around distractions and comfort zones. Scrolling endlessly, consuming content, numbing ourselves with dopamine hits that don’t last.
It’s easier than feeling. Easier than trying. Easier than living.
Apathy is the slow death you don’t even notice. The life you never lived because you were too busy waiting for the “right time,” the “right mood,” the “right circumstances.”
The right time doesn't exist. The only time is now!
How much of your life is controlled by apathy? How many times have you chosen comfort over meaning? How often do you distract yourself instead of doing something that makes your heart race?
Every time you scroll instead of creating, apathy wins. Every time you procrastinate instead of pursuing, apathy wins. Every time you say, “It’s fine, I’ll start tomorrow,” apathy wins.
But you can fight back. You must fight back.
The antidote to apathy is action.
It doesn’t have to be perfect. It doesn’t even have to be good. It just has to be something.
Get started. Make a list. Start small. Build momentum. Care about something, then act like it.
The Paradox of Perspective
Instead of succumbing to mindless distractions, you allow yourself to do something that matters? How do you know what matters?
The paradox of perspective:
If you don’t know what matters, nothing matters.
This reflects nihilism or apathy. Without a clear sense of purpose, nothing feels significant. Life becomes a blank slate, devoid of meaning, and you might end up adrift, detached, or overwhelmed by indecision.
If you don’t know what matters, everything matters.
This is the flip side: without a compass, every tiny decision or event feels monumental because you don’t have a framework to prioritise. You might get caught in an endless loop of overthinking, treating every email or task like a life-or-death scenario.
Both are true. Both will wreck you if you let them.
Find What Matters
This is your homework assignment. If you give a shit, it's none negotiable:
Write down the things that matter to you. Family, learning, whatever. Something that makes you feel alive.
Here’s my first draft:
Family
Being outdoors
Doing things that make me feel alive
Learning
Creating things
Indulging my curiosity, and writing about it
Helping people who really need it.
Now, what’s on your list? Whatever you write, it's now sacred. Make them happen.
I don't have time
This is the hard part. Making time. It's hard, life gets in the way. But if it's important, you'll carve out the time.
It's selfish.
This is about what you really want. Wanting something for yourself will feel selfish. That’s fine. Be selfish.
Denying what you want isn’t noble. It’s cowardly. Stop pretending you’re a martyr. You’re not. You’re scared. But when you suppress yourself, you rob the world of what you could’ve been.
To all of the people pleasing, over delivering people like me who bend over backwards to see others shine whilst you stand in the shadows. Take something for yourself. It's not selfish to want to be happy. It's not selfish to want to grow.
Legacy
If you died tomorrow, people would miss you. For a while they'd mourn you. Then they’d move on. They would live their lives.
They’d cook their own meals, do their own laundry, write their own reports, fix their own problems. You’d be replaced. On a long enough time line we all get replaced.
This isn’t sad. This is freedom.
Stop trying to do everything for everyone. Let people handle their own shit. Let your kids make their own sandwiches. Let your colleague fix their own mess.
This isn't about neglecting anyone. You still have responsibilities.
It's about freeing yourself to focus on what only you can do.
Regrets
Here’s what no one regrets on their deathbed:
Working overtime.
Washing the car more often.
Spending more time commuting.
Not getting to level 500 in Candy Crush.
Here’s what they do regret:
Not spending more time with family.
Going on that trip.
Starting a business.
Learning to ride a horse.
Not chasing their dreams.
Not saying yes to the things that scared them.
Not feeling more alive.
Regret isn’t complicated. It’s just realising you didn’t live while you had the chance. We all know this, this isn't new. So why don't we listen?
Advice You Ignored
When you were a teenager, with the dated haircut, a dash of acne and a know it all attitude, adults may have given you advice like:
“School days are the best days of your life, enjoy them while you can.”
“Never start smoking. It’ll kill you and cost you a fortune.”
“Start saving your money. You’ll be glad you did later.”
What did you do? You ignored them. You thought you knew better. You didn’t.
I got all of that advice and I ignored it all, I had my whole life ahead of me. I didn't need to worry about that. I made the mistakes. I learnt the hard way and I paid the price.
Now you’re the adult. Now you know better. You may have even given advice to someone younger. Maybe your kids, students, younger colleagues? Do you think they'll listen? Probably not. So what are you going to do about it?
I'm going to take the advice of people who have lived to learn the lessons I have not had the chance to yet. I'm going to learn from the people who died with a regret shaped hole in their soul.
I'm not going to be the arrogant know it all. I'm going to listen. I'm going to live, instead of just being alive.
While everyone else is sat watching soaps and reality TV I'm going to do something that matters. I'm going to spend quality time with my kids, I'm going to teach them not to make the same mistakes I made, not just tell them, I'm going to help them understand.
I'm going to spend time with my parents, squeeze every last moment from the time they have left. They've got half as much as I have and I want to make sure that they don't leave without having the opportunity to really live. There's still time, not as much as either of us would like, but there is still time to make it count.
A Call to Arms
This is your wake-up call.
When the end comes, will you be able to say: “I lived. I gave everything I had. I have no regrets.”
If not, start now.
The clock is ticking. What the fuck are you going to do about it?
Memento mori, remember you will die.
As I have become accustomed to doing I have written a poem to go with this post. If that’s not your bag, I don’t blame you for skipping out, it wasn’t mine either. Until it was.
I’d still love it if you would leave a comment though, did this post inspire you? Are you living life already? Have you reached the tipping point and you’re ready to go all in? Let me know.
Memento Mori
Life is a fight,
knuckles bruised, breath short,
sand slipping through the cracks in your clenched fists.
Each grain a moment, a decision,
a chance to move, to care, to create.
Gone.
The weight of apathy hangs heavy,
a shroud over shoulders built to carry dreams.
It whispers,
Not today, not yet, not now,
as if there will always be another sunrise.
The road is jagged,
lined with the ghosts of wasted time,
their hollow eyes watching,
waiting for you to stumble.
And you will stumble.
Knees bloodied,
palms scraped raw against the gravel of failure.
You rise.
You rise because regret is heavier than the ache of effort.
Because every fall is a lesson carved into your bones,
every scar a point on a map leading forward.
You rise because the clock is unrelenting,
and you are not a passenger.
The struggle is your anthem,
and action your prayer.
Through the sweat and the chaos,
you find moments that burn bright,
a child’s laugh,
a finished project,
a sunrise that feels like it was painted just for you.
You are not here to fade quietly.
You are here to carve your name into the hourglass,
to squeeze the marrow out of each breath,
to feel your chest ache with the fullness of it all.
When the end comes, and it will,
you will not beg for more time.
You will not barter or plead.
You will smile,
knowing you spent it all,
left nothing undone,
gave everything.
This was the fight.
This was the climb.
This was your life.
Thanks Mayank, it's a bit morbid as a topic, but good. Sometimes we need that wake up call. Sometimes we need it on a regular basis. Someone to shake us and tell us to wake up.
I certainly woke myself up writing it!
Wise words. Every last one.
Thank you for sharing them!