Not such a cheery title, but it’s true. And thinking about it can help us live a better and more present life.
It’s from Marcus Aurelius’s “Meditations“, which is chock full of stoic wisdom.
He says something to the effect of, “The river is flowing. Everything is dying.”
I felt it today getting started on a morning run. Boy were my muscles sore.
I felt it today in the blustery morning, Fall whispering to us, leaves already beginning to drop, foreshadowing the turning of time.
I’m hearing it in a friend who’s stressed about having to care for her aging parent. Soon we may be the parents, and eventually the ones who need care.
We are currently in the Hebrew month of Elul, the month leading into Rosh Hashannah and Yom Kippur, the holiest days of the year for Jews where we take stock of our lives this past year and set intentions for the coming year.
There are poems that are read on these days in synagogues around the world, framing life as a passing shadow, a disappearing cloud, a fading flower.
It seems morbid, but every time I read something like that or think about it, it instantly makes me present and grateful. I say the ‘river is flowing’ thing every morning as part of a gratitude practice and it works.
Try it. Wake up to your life and the fact that it is ending.