You Can Only Lose The Present
You Can Only Lose The Present
September 4th
“Remember two things: First, that everything has always been the same, and keeps recurring, and it makes no difference whether you see the same things recur in a hundred years or two hundred, or in an infinite period. Second, that the longest-lived and those who will die soonest lose the same thing. The present is all that they can give up, since that is all you have, and what you do not have you cannot lose.”
—Marcus Aurelius
Meditations
It's easy to get swept up in the belief that your challenges are unique, that your struggle is unprecedented.
But Marcus reminds us that the patterns of life—joys, sorrows, triumphs, and defeats—have been the same across the centuries.
Whether it's the daily grind of work or personal challenges with friends and family, take solace in the fact that these experiences are a part of the human condition. Others have navigated these waters before, and their wisdom endures.
This very moment is all anyone truly possesses, no matter their lifespan or status. The richest man and the pauper alike cannot cling to a single second longer than it lasts.
You cannot lose what you never owned, and what you do not own is anything outside of the present.
So the question becomes, how are you spending your 'now'? Are you fretting over what has passed or fixating on the uncertainty of the future, or are you fully engaging with the present, the only time where you can truly act, influence, and live?
