#034 Memento Mori — Remember You Will Die

Hello there it’s been a while.

I know the updates have been few and far between, but not without purpose. For those who know me personally, this may not come as a surprise but I believe this is the right time and place to share it: this will be the last post on The African Stoic. For now.

After thirty-four reflections, it feels right to pause and gather these scattered thoughts and distill them into something more enduring. Something you can hold, read, and return to whenever life demands stillness or strength. That work has already begun. It will become the first volume of The African Stoic book: a guide to living wisely, courageously, and calmly within the chaos of the modern African experience.

Every page of this journey has been lived. Written between failure and renewal, between ambition and silence, between building businesses and rebuilding self. Through it all, one truth has remained; that a life guided by the four Stoic virtues of Wisdom, Courage, Justice, and Temperance is not abstract philosophy, but daily practice.

The book arrives in December in both digital and physical form. Until then, I wanted to end this chapter with a reflection that feels most fitting: on life, death, and purpose.

We have all contemplated death. Usually with fear, sometimes with clarity. In those moments when the mind faces its own extinction, something shifts. The noise quiets and the illusions fall away. What remains is the truth that life is brief, and nothing is truly ours except this moment.

To remember death is to see life as it is: fragile, finite, and urgent. It’s not morbid; it’s medicine. The Stoic doesn’t fear the end. He uses it to live better, to cut through distraction, to love without delay, to create without hesitation. Death isn’t the enemy. Forgetting that it’s coming is.

So as this chapter closes, I find myself returning to the principles that have quietly shaped my days. These are short notes I’ve written to keep myself anchored when life felt heavy or uncertain. They are reminders, not rules. Fragments of lived philosophy distilled into simple truths.

Here are seven of those maxims, and the reflections they’ve inspired.

1. The Gift of Mortality

“Remember death: time is finite, and only what you do now compounds.”

Death is the great clarifier. It reveals what matters by erasing what doesn’t. When you accept that your time is limited, every choice becomes sacred. Most people act as if tomorrow is guaranteed. The Stoic knows that every sunrise might be his last, and that awareness gives weight to his actions. You cannot delay living. The clock is already running.

2. The Weight of Time

“Compounding persistence in what you enjoy and understand makes failure irrelevant; time bends in your favor.”

The wise don’t chase speed; they chase depth. If death is inevitable, then mastery is how we outlive it. What you do consistently in joy and understanding compounds into permanence. The Stoic doesn’t fear the years slipping away; he builds meaning within them. To live well is to stack the minutes of each day into something timeless.

3. Freedom from Control

“Peace begins when you stop worrying over what you can’t control.”

Death humbles the illusion of control. You don’t choose when it arrives, but you can choose how ready you’ll be when it does. Worrying about what’s beyond reach wastes the one resource you can never replace. Time. Peace is born from surrender; not the passive kind, but the kind that frees you to focus on what’s within your power.

4. The Discipline of Focus

“Full calendars and endless to-do lists are crutches for shallow execution; true impact comes from caring deeply, not doing more.”

When you remember death, busyness looks absurd. People pack their schedules to escape the emptiness of unfocused living. But when you know your time is running out, you no longer worship motion, you value meaning instead. The Stoic works with intention, not frenzy. Every act is deliberate, every word considered. The rest is noise.

5. The Weightlessness of Letting Go

“The art of living is traveling light. Anger, envy, resentment, and regret are nothing but excess baggage on the soul’s journey.”

Death is the final simplifier. It strips you of possessions, titles, and grudges alike. Why carry them while you still can choose to set them down? The wise man travels light — he forgives quickly, envies no one, and regrets nothing he cannot change. Every burden dropped is freedom regained.

6. The Fallacy of Legacy

“Legacy is a fallacy. After death, you belong to the storytellers. Live for the game only you can play.”

We chase immortality through fame, fortune, or memory, but death renders all narratives public property. Once you’re gone, others will decide who you were. The Stoic doesn’t seek to be remembered; he seeks to be true while alive. His legacy is not carved in stone but in the texture of his present life, his virtue, his clarity, his peace.

7. The Silence of Clarity

“Practice the art of saying less; in reducing words to their essence, you reveal truth more clearly and sharpen your own understanding.”

In the end, everything quiets. Death silences ambition, chatter, and noise. What remains is the essence of who you were when stripped of everything unnecessary. The Stoic learns to live that way now: clear, precise, deliberate. The less he says, the more he means. The less he clings to, the freer he becomes.

To remember death is not to mourn it. It is to recognize the weight of being alive. Time is slipping through your hands — but that’s what gives it meaning. Death is the mirror that reflects the urgency of life. Look into it often, and live like you know what you see.

Speak soon,

Rey Mungai

Sophia • Andreia • Dikaiosyne • Sophrosyne

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