Memento Mori + Amor Fati = Happiness

Embrace each day as if it were your last.

Each day can be a struggle. Each day I try to improve. Each day I express gratitude, however simple or meaningful.

A few years ago I discovered Stoicism. My life didn’t change in a moment; my perspective gradually changed to one of more appreciation, gratitude, and self-discovery. I like to combine it with the concept of Kaizen — make each day a little better than the last.

Ultimately, what I am in search of is less about happiness or meaning, more about contentment.

Maybe it’s semantics, but contentment is about being at peace with my station in life — my accomplishments or lack thereof, my failures, my worldly success. What matters more is my non-worldly success — family, relationships, self-growth, and spirituality.

I’m 58. I’m genuine in the belief that I am a better person today than I was yesterday. I just wish it didn't take me so long to get here.

…in the words of Terry (Marlon Brando) from “On the Waterfront”, “I coulda been a contender.”

I’ve adopted the mantra Amor Fati, essentially love fate regardless of what it deals me.

I’ve come a bit later to adopting Memento Mori, realizing in a positive manner that we all pass and it may come.

Putting the two together, I attempt to live and view my life in a manner that all that happens, the good and the bad, is part of life. It may cease at any instant. No one escapes alive, or unscathed. Embrace it all.

Live, survive, thrive while you can. In the end, This Too Shall Pass.