Marcus Aurelius Meditations
Marcus Aurelius: The life of such an one, death can…
The life of such an one, death can never surprise as imperfect; as of an actor, that should die before he had ended, or the play itself were at an end, a man might speak.
The passage follows a public-domain translation of Meditations. The reading beside it is ours.
A life is not unfinished because it ends sooner than we planned. It is unfinished when we postpone the work that makes it ours: showing up, telling the truth, loving people well, and doing the next right thing. We often act as though a meaningful life requires a long final chapter in which everything is finally organized and explained. It does not. The actor has done enough if they played their part faithfully while they were on stage. You do not control how many scenes remain. You do control whether you are present in this one. Stop measuring your life by its imagined ending. Ask instead: if today were the whole performance, did I bring courage, attention, and decency to it?
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