This is Your Second Chance
How to stop thinking about work when with loved ones and vice versa using Stoic presence.
My mother and I spent the afternoon of her 70th birthday kneading dough in a pasta-making class in Bologna, Italy. We rolled out tagliatelle, filled tortelloni with ricotta and herbs, and washed everything down with Lambrusco in the apartment of a native Bolognese.
Later that evening, the eating continued in Reggio Emilia at my friend’s place. She made dinner and then her entire family joined me in singing Happy Birthday to my mom, who was sitting at the head of the long table.
As I watched the cake being placed in front of her, candles lit, a time-traveling sensation washed over me. I felt like I was a version of future me from a time when my mother was no longer with us. And I’d wished to have a few moments with her again. To be in her presence.
And here we were. This was my second chance. And I was totally present. I was totally in the moment and grateful to be with my mother.
I’ve never felt anything like this before.
What would our world be like if we could all be that present with others?
What would your life be like?
“Think of yourself as dead. You have lived your life. Now take what’s left and live it properly.” 7.56, Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Gregory Hays translation
Live your life now as if this is bonus time. You’ve been given another chance. Not just to build your empire but to truly be here in this world, to be here for those you care about, and to leave a positive legacy.
Enjoy today because the end is near – but most of us don’t realize this until it’s too late.
5 Whys
Many financially successful entrepreneurs write books later in life and they’re often warnings. Yes, they made millions, billions even. But how they lived their lives wasn’t worth it. Because they didn’t live. They forgot to have fun. Their kids didn’t know them.
What is the point of having a lot of money? More money than you know what to do with? What is the why behind that?
The Stoics had nothing against money. It’s neutral – an indifferent that could be used for good or bad, to feed people or to start wars. But they’d have you question your desire for riches. What is the end goal? What are you working for?
You may have heard of the ‘5 Whys’ exercise conceptualized by Toyota’s founder in the 1930s. State your problem and then ask yourself, ‘why.’ Why is this the way it is? For every new statement, keep asking yourself ‘why’ and do this five times to get to the root cause.
This idea applies to Stoicism, as well. For whatever you desire, ask yourself why. Keep asking yourself that question until you get to your true motivation. The Stoics believed we could cut out our ego-based desires and get to our core needs and values.
The fisherman and the banker
This reminds me of the story about the Mexican fisherman and the investment banker.
While walking along a sandy beach in Mexico, an investment banker came across a fisherman who was packing up for the day. His boat contained several large fish.
“Impressive catch,” the banker said. “Why are you leaving so early?”
“I already caught what I needed for today.”
“What will you do with the rest of your time?”
“I’ll go home and spend time with my wife, go for a walk with my kids, enjoy a good meal, play guitar with my friends.”
“I’m an Ivy league grad and I’m happy to offer you some advice: Stay here and fish longer. That’s how to grow your business. Then you can afford a bigger boat, and then a fleet of boats. You can hire people to work for you and move to the city where you can manage your fish empire and get involved in production and meet investors.”
“How long will this take?”
“About 20 years – and you can make millions! You’ll take your business public and sell your shares and become very rich.”
“And what would I do with all that money?”
“You can move to a quiet Mexican beach town, spend time with your wife, go for walks with your kids, enjoy a good meal, play guitar with your friends.”
What do you really value? What is the end goal? How can you cut out the middleman and go directly to what matters? Considering these questions helps us minimize distractions so we can focus on the here and now.
Be grateful for what you have
What do you cherish above all? What is really important? The Stoics said not just to imagine that our life ended and then we were given another shot, but also to imagine that the things we value are no longer here, or that we never had them at all.
“Look at what you have, the things you value most, and think of how much you’d crave them if you didn’t have them. But be careful. Don’t feel such satisfaction that you start to overvalue them – that it would upset you to lose them.” Marcus Aurelius, 7.27, Meditations, Gregory Hays translation
We often take what we already have for granted. The practice of wanting what we already have is an effective twist on expressing gratitude.
Imagine you’re lacking something that’s already in your life.
Concentrate on how great it would be if you could obtain it. Feel into that want.
And then be grateful that this is your reality.
Listen to your body
What I’ve talked about so far are cognitive approaches to stay present and stop taking life for granted. From my experience, this can only take you so far.
Living in the present moment requires paying attention to your somatic intelligence – the wisdom of your body.
We make sense of our present moment by filtering it through our past experiences. Our bodies are reading the room and sending information to our brains in the form of the physical sensations that we feel inside our bodies.
This is called interoception: Your perception of what's happening inside your body regarding physical sensations like hunger and also emotional sensations, like a shiver down your spine.
Have you ever felt like you should be working when you’re with your family or friends? Maybe you constantly feel like you have more to do, or that whatever you’re doing, you really should be doing something else?
We can get really caught up in our heads this way. We need to get out of our heads. Here’s how.
We need to slow down and pay attention to those physical sensations and get curious about what they mean.
I can relate to feelings of too much to do and not enough time. Striving. Future-focussed. Yet still distracted by a lot of busy work. For me, these physical sensations feel like a tug of war, where part of me is pushing forward, and another part of me is pulling back. I can feel this war inside my chest.
When I’m with someone and I’m feeling this way, messages go to my brain: This is nice, but you should be at your desk. You should head home soon. Don’t go out tomorrow because you have more work to do. A sort of soft alarm.
Instead of trying to fight thoughts and sensations like these, we can pause and be mindful of them. Deep belly breath to open up and melt away some of that tension.
Then ask better questions that connect to your values.
What is truly important to me in life?
What if this is exactly where I’m supposed to be?
Ten years from now, how will I wish I had spent this day?
What if this is the last day I ever spend with this person? Someday it will be.
And then, hand on heart, really feel those responses. What are you physically feeling now? Relax into those loving sensations. Notice what feels different, any shifts in your posture. Maybe you relaxed your shoulders, feel more at ease.
Presence comes when we start working with all three of our intelligence centers. So, not just our head and heart, but our body, as well.
Physical reminders
A few years ago, Tim Urban, the blogger at Wait But Why, wrote about how much time he had left based on a lifespan of 90 years. He drew visual examples: about 60 winters, 20 more ball games at Fenway based on his current attendance rate, time to read 300 more books (that’s nothing! I have more than 300 on my list already).
Most importantly, he talks about relationships:
“I’ve been thinking about my parents, who are in their mid-60s. During my first 18 years, I spent some time with my parents during at least 90% of my days. But since heading off to college and then later moving out of Boston, I’ve probably seen them an average of only five times a year each, for an average of maybe two days each time. 10 days a year. About 3% of the days I spent with them each year of my childhood.
Being in their mid-60s, let’s continue to be super optimistic and say I’m one of the incredibly lucky people to have both parents alive into my 60s. That would give us about 30 more years of coexistence. If the ten days a year thing holds, that’s 300 days left to hang with mom and dad. Less time than I spent with them in any one of my 18 childhood years.
When you look at that reality, you realize that despite not being at the end of your life, you may very well be nearing the end of your time with some of the most important people in your life.
It turns out that when I graduated from high school, I had already used up 93% of my in-person parent time. I’m now enjoying the last 5% of that time. We’re in the tail end.” The Tail End, Tim Urban
You can buy a Life Calendar on his website, which is a grid of empty boxes: One box for every week of your life up until the age of 90.
Here’s the description for it:
"We tend to feel locked into whatever life we’re living, but this pallet of empty boxes can be absolutely whatever we want it to be. Everyone you know, everyone you admire, every hero in history—they did it all with that same grid of empty boxes.
The boxes can also be a reminder that life is forgiving. No matter what happens each week, you get a new fresh box to work with the next week."
In the 17th-century, artists started incorporating hourglasses, skulls, and candles about to go out in their paintings in a style known as memento mori: Remember you must die.
An artist in Belgian has created a clock called Shortlife that shows the percentage of your life you’ve already completed based on your life expectancy.
Reminders that we only have so much time left scare some people. Many people. We would rather pretend that we will live forever. And that’s a trap, because it keeps us stuck in our own BS and prevents us from living the lives we want. And seeing the people you really care about.
Seneca says that it’s not that life is too short but that we don’t use our time well. We waste so much of it.
What’s most important to you?
If you could have more time to do what you really care about, what would you stop doing today?
What will you start doing to live more in alignment with your values?
When you’re 100 years old and looking back on your life, what changes would you make? I’m here to help you make them. Visit sarahmikutel.com to learn more about how I can help you.