A Limit Has Been Set On Your Time

This week, a timely meditation.

This will be a different sort of post — it will not be a direct explanation of the next passage of Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations, but rather a small narrative about my life this week. But this narrative does include a reflection on the text.

In many ways, 2023 is starting off quite well. Over on YouTube, I now have 65,000 subscribers. I’m close to 2 million views. I have a few videos out that I am very proud of, as I think they show how I’ve progressed as a YouTuber and video editor. In other aspects of my life, things are going even better. My wife’s pregnancy is not too difficult and it appears our son is healthy. Some of you may know that I attend an Orthodox Christian parish — and it was last Sunday when my wife and I were chrismated, making us full members of the Orthodox Church.¹

But in other ways, the year so far has been quite difficult. On January 6, my cat became very ill. (I won’t go into the details about his condition, as they aren’t all that pleasant.) This has meant many trips to veterinarians, including several trips to the emergency clinic. It is an emotionally draining experience. Further, if it weren’t for the additional income I now make from YouTube, I don’t know if we could have afforded these medical interventions. My month has been a series of car rides with a distressed cat, many nights waking up to take care of the poor thing, and many afternoons spent cleaning up after him. All the while, I worked my job and tried to make videos.

I made a post about this on YouTube, and one comment stood out to me. The commenter expressed her hope that I would use the lessons of Stoicism while dealing with a trying time. I asked myself Am I doing that? And the answer was an unfortunate no.

Then I turned to the Meditations this week to write this post. I hadn’t read it much in the last two weeks — I’ve been busy, as you can tell from the above description. The text for this week is §4 from Notebook 2. In this passage, Marcus reminds himself of the due dates given to him by the gods that he has ignored, the limits set on his time, and the nature of the universe that he inhabits. It is a call to action.

A concept common in Stoicism, but also found in Christian thought (and I am sure elsewhere) is memento mori. This Latin phrase is somewhere between a reminder and a command: remember that you will die. This is the limit set upon our earthly time.

This is the ultimate due date — after that, there are no earthly opportunities. This is what Marcus means when he writes:

It’s high time for you to recognize..that a limit has been set on your time, and if you don’t use it to dispel the mists it will pass, and you will pass, and the opportunity won’t come again.

When I have been struggling this month, perhaps I should remind myself of this fact. I cannot make myself numb to my emotions. And admittedly, I do not want to be unfeeling. I want to feel sorrow when something difficult happens. But I do not want to be controlled by this sorrow. I want to find a way to still do the things that need to be done. Perhaps when Stoics are described as men of action, this is what is meant. Stoics understand their duties, their obligations, and they are able to fulfill them even during trying times. And as motivation, they remind themselves of just how fleeting this earthly life is.

I apologize for the brief post this week. Things will be back to normal next week.

1. In general, I don’t talk about this publicly in any detail. I’m not a spiritual advisor or authority, nor a spokesman for all of Orthodoxy (or even Orthodoxy in America). But it is relevant today.