There is a Latin phrase I have carried with me for a long time: memento mori, "remember [that you have] to die". It sounds grim. For me it is one of the most practical ideas I know. It is not about fear. It is about focus.
When I remember that everything ends, it is easier to tell what matters from what is temporary, and to get the important things done.
Death comes more than once
We think of death as one event at the end of life. In reality I die many times, and so do you.
Relationships die. My role in a business I built and outgrew dies. The relationship with an employee I worked beside for five years dies. A partnership that once held a company together dies. A version of me that believed things I no longer believe dies.
Seneca said it two thousand years ago: "we die every day. For every day a little of our life is taken from us." In his first letter to Lucilius he asks: "What man can you show me who places any value on his time, who reckons the worth of each day, who understands that he is dying daily?" And he advises: "hold every hour in your grasp."
Buddhism calls it anicca, impermanence: "nicca" means "constant, continuous, permanent", and "anicca" is its exact opposite. In one sutta the Buddha tells everyone, "whether one is a woman or a man, lay or ordained", to reflect often: "I am subject to death, have not gone beyond death", and "I will grow different, separate from all that is dear and appealing to me."
The easiest place to see this is everyday life. We move out of the home we grew up in, and part of our life dies with the old walls while another is born in the new place. A child grows up and leaves home: the role of parent of a small child dies so that a relationship between two adults can be born. We change cities, and our familiar rhythm dies with the old circle of friends. We give up an old habit, and the person we were with that habit dies too. We sell a car or a house that holds ten years of memories. An old friendship quietly fades because we took different roads. Someone retires, and their professional role, often the core of who they thought they were, dies.
Each of these is a small death. And each one, if we accept it, makes room for something new: a new home, a new relationship with an adult child, new people, a new version of ourselves, a new occupation.
Every "forever" in my life has an expiry date. The only question is whether I see it in advance.
Why the relationship with an employee will end
This is probably the least popular idea here, but I believe it: the relationship with every employee will end one day. They leave, or I leave, or the company changes so much that the role disappears. That is not pessimism, just the arithmetic of time.
Accepting it changes how I act:
- I don't build systems that rest on one irreplaceable person. Knowledge is written down, duties can be handed over, nobody holds the company hostage, even with the best intentions.
- I am more honest today. If we part, I want the person to leave stronger than they came.
- I don't treat a departure as betrayal. People grow, and their path and the company's diverge. That is what happens to everything alive.
- I think about the parting at the start. Fair terms agreed up front save both the relationship and both sides' dignity.
A death that gives birth
But the end of the relationship with an employee is not only a loss. Very often it is a birth.
The employee moves to a new job and grows there: more responsibility, things they couldn't learn with us. And I, as the employer, get a chance to rebuild the role or the whole team around what the company needs now, not five years ago. The old place is freed and something new moves in.
Then comes the most interesting part. A former employee comes back, in a new quality, with experience they didn't have before. Or becomes a partner. Or a client. Or simply an ambassador who talks about the company and recommends people and customers to us. Large companies build whole communities of former employees, alumni, for a reason. One form of relationship ends, and another is born from it.
So I try to part in a way that leaves the door open. Not out of duty, but because I know the death of one form is often the beginning of the next.
The same goes for partners and businesses. The worst breakups I've seen were between people who believed it was forever and so agreed on nothing.
Families used to be for life
My grandparents married once. Things are different now, and that is data, not a feeling.
According to Eurostat, since 1964 the crude marriage rate in the EU "has declined by more than 50% in relative terms (from 8.0 per 1 000 persons in 1964 to 3.9 in 2024)". Over the same period "the crude divorce rate has essentially doubled, increasing from 0.8 per 1 000 persons in 1964 to 1.6 in 2024". Eurostat adds that it "peaked in 2006 (2.1 per 1 000 persons) and has been declining slightly since then", and that part of the increase is because divorce was legalised in several countries (Italy, Spain, Ireland, Malta).
Our World in Data shows a similar picture with an important nuance: "divorce rates increased markedly in many countries between the 1970s and 1990s. In the UK, Norway, and South Korea, divorce rates more than tripled." In England and Wales, "In 1963, only 1.5% of couples had divorced before their fifth anniversary, 7.8% had divorced before their tenth, and 19% before their twentieth anniversary. By the mid-1990s this had increased to 11%, 24%, and 38%, respectively. Since then, divorces have been on the decline."
So the truth is not that "families fall apart faster and faster". It is subtler: within a few generations marriage went from something nearly unchangeable to something that can end. People more often close one chapter and open another. The old dies, the new is born, and the cycle turns faster than in our grandparents' time.
The law of time
Here is a pattern I see. It's my own observation, not a scientific claim: the more choice there is and the faster the environment changes, the faster the cycle of birth, life and death turns in everything, from companies to relationships.
What speeds it up: choice (with an alternative there's less reason to endure what no longer works), mobility (people change jobs, countries, languages), independence (someone economically self-sufficient can leave, and that changes the deal), and pace of change (when the world shifts every year, people shift too, not always in the same direction).
What slows it down: a shared purpose bigger than both people, honest agreements, and a willingness to grow together rather than side by side.
So the old model, where "once and for all" was guaranteed by outside circumstances, no longer works. "Forever" is no longer given; it is chosen every day, in families, teams and partnerships. We can mourn the old model, or understand it and adapt. I choose the second.
The warriors of the East
Nobody thought about death as directly as people for whom it was an occupational hazard, and their conclusions are surprisingly practical.
Hagakure. Yamamoto Tsunetomo: "The Way of the Samurai is found in death. When it comes to either/or, there is only the quick choice of death. It is not particularly difficult. Be determined and advance." To me this is not a cult of death but a cure for indecision.
Budoshoshinshu. Daidoji Yuzan: "One who is a samurai must before all things keep constantly in mind, by day and by night ... the fact that he has to die. That is his chief business." When he stands before his lord, he should think of it as his last appearance; when he looks at his relatives, he should feel he will never see them again, and then his duty and regard for them will be completely sincere. Yuzan also warns that sitting all day pondering one's end suits a recluse, not a warrior, who "must on the contrary be constantly busy with his affairs both public and private."
Miyamoto Musashi, The Book of Five Rings: "Generally speaking, the Way of the warrior is resolute acceptance of death."
Sun Tzu. War is "a matter of life and death, a road either to safety or to ruin", and: "Throw your soldiers into positions whence there is no escape, and they will prefer death to flight. If they will face death, there is nothing they may not achieve." I've seen this in business: a team with nowhere to retreat often does the impossible.
Bhagavad Gita. When Arjuna refuses to fight his own kin, Krishna answers: "Thou grievest where no grief should be! ... the wise in heart / Mourn not for those that live, nor those that die." Despair before the inevitable does not release us from the duty to act.
The warriors of the West
Spartans. Plutarch, Sayings of Spartan Women: a mother, handing her son his shield, says "Either this or upon this." Another: "This shield your father kept always safe for you; do you, therefore, keep it safe, or cease to live."
Romans. Marcus Aurelius, who spent much of his reign on campaign: "Since it is possible that thou mayest depart from life this very moment, regulate every act and thought accordingly." And Horace: "Pallida Mors aequo pulsat pede pauperum tabernas regumque turris", pale Death knocks with an impartial foot at the hovels of the poor and the towers of kings, and life's brief span forbids us long hopes.
Christian knighthood. Bernard of Clairvaux, In Praise of the New Knighthood: "Rejoice, brave athlete, if you live and conquer in the Lord; but glory and exult even more if you die and join your Lord."
Cossacks. Andriy Chaikovsky in Zaporozhzhia writes that the Zaporizhian Cossack went out prepared for death and was not afraid, "for such is the Cossack lot. Today a Cossack, tomorrow gone." Cossack proverbs: "Better death in the field than life in bondage" and "A Cossack's life is short, but his glory is eternal." (My translations.)
Tecumseh. A well-known poem attributed to the Shawnee leader ("So live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart ... Sing your death song and die like a hero going home") is listed by Wikiquote as disputed. The authorship isn't confirmed, but the idea is the same.
Traditions separated by thousands of kilometres and centuries agree: a warrior who has accepted death stops being afraid and starts seeing clearly.
Death as a filter
Steve Jobs, Stanford, 2005: "Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure — these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important."
Psalm 90:12: "So teach us to number our days, That we may apply our hearts unto wisdom." Ecclesiastes 7:2: "It is better to go to the house of mourning, than to go to the house of feasting: for that is the end of all men; and the living will lay it to his heart."
The questions I run decisions through:
- If this were my last year, would I do this?
- If this were my last conversation with this person, what would I say?
- If the company closed in a year, what would I be proud of?
- Which of today's worries will I remember in ten years?
The filter sifts out other people's expectations, small grudges, status chasing and work for work's sake. What remains is the people I love, work that means something, and who I am when nobody is watching.
What this is not
It's not depression. Yuzan himself said not to sit all day thinking about the end. It's not indifference to life: life is precious because there is little of it. And it's not cynicism about relationships: that they can end doesn't make them less real; it makes them precious today.
Instead of a conclusion
I don't know how much time I have. Nobody does. But every death in my life, of a relationship, a role, an old version of me, made room for something new. And when I remember the end, I do less, but better and more important things.
I sincerely wish you to find not fear in this thought, but clarity.
Some questions I'd love your answers to:
- Which "death" in your life, of a relationship, a job, a role, turned out to be the start of something better?
- Do you think, at the start of working with someone, about how you'll part? How does that change the relationship?
- What would you keep from this week if you knew it was your last year?
- How do we update the old "once and for all" model in family and business without losing loyalty and depth?
Share in the comments. I genuinely want to know.