Getting After It

077: The Principle of Memento Mori – Remember You Must Die

• Brett Rossell • Season 3 • Episode 77

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What if facing the reality of death could actually make life a whole lot more colorful and meaningful? In this episode, we’re getting deep—like, existential-crisis deep.

I’m sharing the story of how a personal showdown with a serious illness flipped my world upside down and introduced me to the concept of memento mori—a fancy way of saying, ‘Remember, you’re gonna die.’ 

But here’s the kicker: embracing our mortality can actually help us zero in on what really counts—like soaking up time with the people we love and actually enjoying the little things.

We’re diving into how aligning our actions with our true values can lead to a life that’s not just lived but savored. It’s your reminder that life is short, so let’s make every day count.

We talk about the not-so-fun-but-necessary stuff. Last November, I had a real come-to-Jesus moment when I realized my work-life balance was more like a teeter-totter gone rogue. Channeling my inner Steve Jobs, I had to face the brutal truth and make some gutsy moves to get back on track with what truly matters. This episode is all about getting real with yourself, figuring out what brings you joy, and then chasing it like your life depends on it—because, spoiler alert, it kinda does.

Grab your favorite beverage, tune in, and let’s chat about how practicing gratitude and committing to self-improvement can set you on the path to living fully and authentically. It’s time to take that first step towards your goals and start appreciating each and every moment you’ve got. Trust me, you won’t want to miss this one.

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I hope today’s discussion lit a fire under you to chase your dreams and embrace your true potential. If you found it helpful, share it with someone who could use a boost.

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Remember, this podcast is all about you—the dreamers and the doers. I’m here to give you a platform to be heard, find inspiration, and learn from others who dared to chase their dreams.

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Your dreams are within reach. You just have to decide to Get After It.

Speaker 1:

This life is limited, so spend the time. Spend your time doing the things you love the most. What is important to you? Where do you spend most of your time? Are the things that you say are important to you actually not, and you prioritize other things above them? These are all important questions to ask yourself, and Steve Jobs, having publicly embraced the concept of mortality as a way to inspire living to the fullest, he famously said this Remembering that you are going to die is the best way, I know, to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. Think about that for a second. If you are living to your fullest ability and you are living every day, as it were your last, can you imagine what you would do differently? You probably wouldn't be scrolling around and sitting on Netflix or doing anything like that, right? But we are going to be talking about a concept that I've learned from the Stoics, and that is the principle of memento mori, which is Latin and translates to remember you must die, but it's not supposed to be morbid. It's a reminder of mortality, and so this is supposed to encourage you, instead of fearing your death, to instead live a meaningful and virtuous life. That's why I started this off with you know what is important to you? Because if you live each day as it's your last, wouldn't you want to spend time with your loved ones? Wouldn't you want to do things that you love doing instead of you know, struggling to go to work or whatever the experience might be Like? The little things that you're doing do they bring you joy? Because the principle of memento mori is if you align your priorities correct and to the values that you say you live and you believe in, then your life will be fantastic. You will have an amazing life. It just takes that initial step to figure out what is important to you and realizing that this life is limited. So spend the time. Spend your time doing things you love the most. Now, I always like to. If I can tie this back to a known personal experience, right, but memento mori is a hard one to tie into.

Speaker 1:

Luckily or unlucky for me, I have an experience, and that's when I was super sick, when I was 135 pounds and I kept getting worse. My health kept deteriorating. I thought I was going to die, and I always make this joke to Allie, which she hates, but I always say you know, I was pretty much just cutting off my ties to everyone. I always say, you know, I was pretty much just cutting off my ties to everyone, trying to make sure that I wasn't going to be a burden if it came to the point to where I was going to pass away and die. And I was conflicted day after day with the unknown. I had no idea what was going to happen to me. I had no idea what I was diagnosed with. There was a lot of unknown and it was scary at the time.

Speaker 1:

But during that time was spending my time with my family, with the people I love not my friends, cause, again, I'm sorry, I cut most people out of my life at that point, but I spent time doing the things that were important, and for me that was going to my church, it was serving in our temple, it was spending time with my family, it was, um, you know, not taking life so seriously and enjoying the little things, and it was an eye-opening experience. Honestly, and because of that whole thing this podcast started. Because of that experience, I take each day with gratitude and I am grateful that God has given me another day to live and to breathe and to go outside and see the trees, as I was preparing for this podcast, I was sitting upstairs at our table, overlooking the valley that we live in, and it was raining, and so I could hear the rain hitting the leaves of the trees while I'm writing, and in the distance there's thunder going off. And it was beautiful. The clouds were just gray enough to where it wasn't too gloomy, it was just pretty. And I took a second up there and I said you know, this is what life is about. It's experiencing little things like this. It doesn't necessarily have to be a life-changing experience, but it's just taking gratitude for the little things in life that we often miss and that we often don't take the time to admire and respect, because we're busy and we're trying to do so many different things and it's difficult. But there's power in it, and the Stoics adopted this concept as a tool for their own reflections. And for Stoics it wasn't a morbid fixation to think about death, but it was a call instead to live each day fullest to their fullest, and if you can kind of tie that principle to your own life.

Speaker 1:

Obviously I've asked this question in this podcast right now. But what would you do differently? Where would you be spending most of your time? And if something is off, if there is, you know, an area in your life that you you wish you didn't spend so much time maybe it is work, maybe you're spending a lot of time working. You wish you didn't have to Then what I would say to that is is it's time to reflect, because you don't have your entire life to just wait around and be in a job you hate.

Speaker 1:

Take initiative and take that first step, no matter how scary it might be, but you might just need to figure out where you like to spend your time and do things that are important. Obviously, you need to make money, you need to take care of the people that you love, but you also need to spend time with them, because this life is fast, it's quick. I tell Allie all the time that it's so weird We've already been married for a year because it's gone by so fast. It's been an adventure, it's been amazing, but it's sad to think that life does go by quick and that's okay. I mean it happens. But realize that it's a, it's a gift every single day.

Speaker 1:

And I have a few different takeaways that you guys can all do and start practicing in your life to to maybe put mortality more on a on a focus for you, and the first one that I would say is just practice gratitude. Practice like I'm sitting at the table and listening to the rain and just admiring the beauty of the earth. Find little times in your day like that. Find one moment of each day where you can confidently stand with your feet on the ground and be completely in that moment. It's going to require you to get rid of your phone, it's going to require you to pause, and that's okay, because as much as this life is fast, that doesn't mean you don't have time to enjoy the little things. Now there have been critiques of this concept. Some people say you know, hey, focusing too much on mortality could lead to anxiety or it could lead to nihilism. But I think that is false. I don't believe in that, and I'll tell you why.

Speaker 1:

Seneca, who is a Stoic, says let us prepare our minds as if we'd come to the very end of life. Let us postpone nothing. Let us balance life's books each day. The one who puts the finishing touches on their life each day is never short of time. The one who puts the finishing touches on their life each day is never short of time. And so what he is saying there is don't wait. If I waited to start this podcast when I was ready, I probably wouldn't be in year two. If I waited to ask Allie to marry me, who knows, we might not be married, and so is it with all the things in life that are.

Speaker 1:

Important is, if you act now, could you change your future for the better. If you take each day as a gift and you treat it that way and you respect it that way and you look for opportunities to enjoy that gift, then your perspective will change and you will have your eyes, in a sense, opened to the beauty of life. Life is beautiful. It's amazing going down the street and seeing people help each other. Or I was traveling from Vegas back to Utah and this old man I want to say he was probably 90 years old. He was sitting there alone and just kind of reading a book, chilling, and this one lady goes over and sits by him and I don't know if she knew him or not, but they just kicked up a conversation and started talking and it seemed like they were best friends. But they could have been, but at least it was a nice moment to see humans interacting with other humans and treating each other with respect and love.

Speaker 1:

That's a challenge I would have you guys do is generosity doesn't necessarily have to be costly. It costs nothing to be kind. It costs nothing to hold the door open for someone right? Your acts of service will probably go out further than any monetary donation you give or whatever. People remember the things that you did for them that were nice, and so my challenge would just be find something that you could do that's nice to someone, that's kind. Do a kind thing every day, because that alone will help you as you practice this philosophy of memento mori. When you focus on other people, it also shows you hey, we're all in the same boat together. We are all on this floating rock in space, and you know what? We might as well make it a little bit easier for one another, so I'm going to step in and help where I can.

Speaker 1:

For me, that's a fulfilled and virtuous life, kind of like the entire point of remember you must die, like how are you going to live a meaningful and virtuous life? And in my opinion, it's being kind and giving gratitude. Those are two very important principles when you're trying to practice this, and I was thinking about this too, because I am religious, I'm a Christian and I was like well, how does this play into my own beliefs and my own thought process when I think about the afterlife? The same principle applies, at least with my own religion. In Christianity, you are judged on your actions that you have on earth and you're judged based on your intentions and the mistakes or repenting you have done in your past, all to live with your heavenly father again. But something that's important to think about is we are judged by our actions on this earth and if we apply the principle of memento mori, realize that every day I might you know, I have the chance of dying, could be in a car accident, I could have a heart attack, who knows? It could be running and get hit by a bus or bear attack. Can you imagine me going out by freaking bear? That'd be, that'd be kind of sick but pretty traumatic for my family. Let's hope that doesn't happen.

Speaker 1:

Anyways, it's limited time. Being on earth is limited, and so, with the background of my own religion, of me knowing that I will be judged based on my actions on this earth, wouldn't I want those actions to be virtuous, to be meaningful, to be kind, to help someone when they need it most. If God has a list of everything I've done, I want most of them to say Brett helped Allie. Brett helped this old lady, rosie Brett helped his mom. I don't know how they do it up there, but the point is is I want to be remembered as being a kind person, and so my reflections of my day-to-day actions will probably tell me if I am living up to my expectations of myself and my own actions. Am I doing what I say I should? Am I doing what I need to be doing?

Speaker 1:

So the point of me bringing religion into this is I think if you have similar principles, you can also apply it to that as well. They tie into each other. In my opinion, christianity and a lot of the teachings from the Stoics play into each other because a lot of it is treat your brother how you want to be treated. That's really the gist of it. And Christianity Christ asks us to be his disciples on this earth and help his brothers and sisters, and in the Stoics they pretty much say the same thing, except they don't talk about God. It just says be a good person, be there for someone when they need it, stand up, share your voice and let it be heard when you need to.

Speaker 1:

There's this quote from Marcus Aurelius that I think also ties into this principle pretty top-notch, if you ask me. He says you could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think. Again. It goes back to that principle of if this was your last day, what would you do? Epictetus, he says this keep death and exile before your eyes each day, along with everything that seems terrible. By doing so, you'll never lose a base thought, nor will you have excessive desires. All these quotes from these Stoic philosophers all say the same thing Keep your death at the top of your mind, because, who knows, something could happen to you. But how you treat people today will determine what those people say at your funeral. Was Brett the person that he wanted to be? That he said on his podcast, yeah, he helps people. Was he actually that person? I hope the answer is yes when that time comes.

Speaker 1:

One thing I love doing is journaling. Journaling has helped me really understand my own thought process, and the way that I tell people to journal is just talk to yourself and slowly write it out. Weird as it sounds, it's probably the best advice I could give when it comes to journaling, what are you thinking about? Just have a conversation with yourself. It's also a good way to contemplate your daily actions. So some kind of daily reflection, some form of meditation, but I would suggest taking a few moments, either each morning or in the evening, to consider how the day was spent or could be spent, and what could be done differently if it was your last day. That's a simple journal prompt I can put in the show notes just in case you want to give it a shot, but I think really figuring that out will help you understand what's your priorities, because understanding your priorities helps you know your goals, where your relationships are at, your personal growth, where you're at, and also gives you an awareness of mortality, in a sense that it helps cut through distractions and focus on what's truly important to you Prioritize your life.

Speaker 1:

I mentioned on this podcast how, november of last year two years ago, man, I don't know yeah, last year, but I was given a choice to really figure out what my priorities were. I needed to sit down and be honest with myself, because up to that point, I wasn't really honest with myself. I told myself, yeah, my family is important to me, but I was spending way more time at work than I should have been, and I had to take a internal look at myself and say, okay, where can I improve? What can I be doing different? That can help me grow and be the man that I want to be, and I would advise you to do the same. Sit down and write out what your priorities are and then focus on those. Everything else shouldn't matter, because this life is meaningless Not meaningless, that was the wrong word. This life is short and it's important to live a meaningful and virtuous life, and the only way to do that is to be cognizant of your daily actions.

Speaker 1:

Remember what Steve Jobs said remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose and you have nothing to lose. So take the chance, be bold with your decisions, don't wait and have a little risk. Have some risk, adherence and get after it, because who knows? Your dream could be on the other side of your first step. So take that first step and, until you do, just keep getting after it. Appreciate everyone for listening. This is a little shorter episode, but I think it is probably a little bit helpful to get an easily digestible concept and just be able to apply some key takeaways to your life. I would challenge you all to take what I said and apply something to your life that's new, it's novel and I can almost guarantee you you will start to be grateful for every day, because every day is a gift. Remember that, keep getting after it everybody.