Will you still be up to the task?

From Marcus Aurelius:

Not just that every day more of our life is used up and less and less of it is left, but this too: if we live longer, can we be sure our mind will still be up to understanding the world — to the contemplation that aims at divine and human knowledge?

If our mind starts to wander, we’ll still go on breathing, go on eating, imagining things, feeling urges and so on. But getting the most out of ourselves, calculating where our duty lies, analyzing what we hear and see, deciding whether it’s time to call it quits — all the things you need a healthy mind for … all those are gone. So we need to hurry. Not just because we move daily closer to death but also because our understanding — our grasp of the world — may be gone before we get there.

Getting the most out of ourselves today.

Did we do our best? Were we kind? Were we useful to someone? Did we do the right thing? Did we challenge ourselves to push the boundaries of our limitations? What else can we discover? About ourselves, about others, about the world?

Yeah maybe it’s Wednesday, so what? How are we so sure that we will be capable tomorrow? Life circumstances can arise that may hinder us from pursuing what we keep putting off today. It may just as well be that we later lose the spark to do what we wanted to do. Tomorrow, we can get in an accident that limits us physically, or mentally. Tomorrow, we can die.

While we are here, while we are healthy, while we are capable, let’s give all we have to give.