Welcome to the Daily Stoic podcast, designed to help bring those four key stoic virtues, courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom into the real world.

Do you know what one of the last things Abraham Lincoln ever said was? As he sat in a box at Ford's Theater as he waited

for the play to start, Lincoln turned to his wife and said, oh, how I should like to visit Jerusalem

sometime. Within minutes, an assassin would fire a bullet into his brain. Within hours, he would be dead.

Now, of course, there were many reasons why this great man

never found time in life to visit Jerusalem. He had to teach himself to read. He had to work himself

out of abject poverty. He had to conquer depression. And then the gravest threat to freedom

yet known in the United States. He freed the slaves and made sure democracy would not perish from

the earth. And these are all reasons why he had to put off that trip till a later date, just as you

have many reasons why you are waiting to do this or delaying doing that. And yet life has a way of

stripping all our reasons bare of humbling our plans and assumptions.

We must live, as Mark Sirelia said, as if death hangs over us, because it does.

We cannot put off till tomorrow, he said, what we can do today, whether that's being good,

our highest priority, or telling people we love them, we're going places we wish to go.

No one knows what the future holds. No one knows how much time we have left. So do not delay.

Do not wish. Do not wait. Do it now. While you still have time, while there still is a chance.

All of the future is uncertainty, Seneca said. So live now. Live immediately. still have time, while there still is a chance.

All of the future is uncertainty, Seneca said.

So live now, live immediately.

Or as Marcus says in the challenge going, I carry with me everywhere, you could leave life right now,

let that determine what you do and say and think.

This exercise of Memento Mori from the Stokes, it's not about being morbid. It's about creating a sense of urgency and clarity and priority. That's why the Stoics practice Memento Mori, that's why I carry this challenge going with me. I have a Memento Mori, a piece of a tombstone that I keep in my bathroom mirror that I look at on a daily basis. Momentumory, it's so powerful.

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