It’s easy to nod along with a book (or even this email) when you’re reading it. Or to double-tap the like button when you see an inspiring Instagram post.

But how long does this stay with you? How quickly will its message flutter away? It’s a critical problem for all of us out there who are trying to get better. Who are trying to actually live the principles of philosophy, and to rely on it in life’s stressful moments, as well as life’s ordinary hours.

Stoicism as a philosophy was made to be kept in hand, always at the ready. Even the title of Epictetus’s Enchiridion (hand book) shows this. As A.A. Long writes in his recent translation of Epictetus for the Princeton University Press:

In its earliest usage Enchiridion refers to a hand-knife or dagger. Arrian may have wished to suggest that connotation of the work’s defensive or protective function. It fits his admonition at the beginning and end of the text to keep Epictetus’s message “to hand” (procheiron).

That really tells you something about this philosophy, doesn’t it? That it’s not just a book, it’s not just handy; it’s designed to become almost like an extension of ourselves. To protect and serve us in each day’s tests.

Continue reading here.

Key learnings:

• Throughout history, various cultures, generations, philosophers and stoics have kept the reminder of mortality close through writing, art, music, jewelry, and ritual.
• Memento mori - "Remember you will die".
• Roman generals used this as a reminder of mortality at their moments of greatest triumph. Philosophers have kept skulls on their desks for millennia. Early Buddhist texts used the term maranasati, which translates as "remember death." Some Sufis frequently visited graveyards to ponder on death and one's mortality. In Renaissance Europe, memento more prayer beads were popular. 
• All of these historical examples were trying to keep at hand the idea that we can go at any moment. Not to be depressing or create fearful thoughts, but as reminders to live the principles of what they believed in daily, to seize the moments and opportunities that lead to great accomplishment, to be the person they want to be.
• While times have changed and we may not keep the same reminders at hand, the benefits of memento more remain and must always be kept at hand. 
• Are you seizing the day? Who should you be sending messages to that will share your gratitude, love, happiness, forgiveness with? What goals and dreams do you want to accomplish that needs to be started now? What do you need to do today? Don't wait for it to be too late! The fierce urgency of NOW!