{"id":1176,"date":"2023-12-07T05:00:54","date_gmt":"2023-12-07T13:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.meditationsbybilly.com\/?p=1176"},"modified":"2023-12-07T05:00:54","modified_gmt":"2023-12-07T13:00:54","slug":"your-bonus-life-begins-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.meditationsbybilly.com\/the-daily-stoic\/12\/07\/your-bonus-life-begins-now\/","title":{"rendered":"Your Bonus Life Begins Now"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

“Think of the life you have lived until now as over and, as a dead man, see what’s left as a bonus and live it according to Nature. Love the hand that fate deals you and play it as your own, for what could be more fitting?”<\/p>MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS<\/em>, 7.56-57<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

What a challenge: imagine that you’ve died today, and yet somehow you get a bonus stage in the game of life, and you get to continue living. How would you live that bonus life<\/strong>? With the knowledge and perspective that it gives you, what would you do with the extra time you’ve been granted?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Daily Stoic book points out that “we have an irrational fear of acknowledging our own mortality”, and it’s true. I really don’t expect this post to be the most popular on my site, because people don’t like reading about dying<\/em>, or thinking about their own death. (Heck, all of December has this theme \u2014 probably won’t get many viewers on this months’ posts, haha!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it doesn’t have to be uncomfortable and sad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Thinking deeply about the shortness of our lives can actually inspire us and give us energy<\/em>. It can remind us that life is short, and that we should seize each opportunity as if it were our last<\/a>. It might actually be!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s possible to reach a new perspective that in actual fact, we are<\/em> each of us dying one day at a time \u2014 and we should therefore live like a dying person<\/a>. Not in sadness and regret; but rather boldly, with joy and determination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Sword of Damocles <\/a>can drop at any moment, but in this particular case you have been granted a bonus life<\/strong>. Lucky you. “Love the hand that fate deals you<\/a>“, as Marcus said above \u2014 and make the most of it<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Imagine this: today was your day to die, but somehow you’ve been granted a bonus life. What will you do with this extra time you’ve been given, and what will you fill it with?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1179,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[547,621,618,522,202,425,203,321,337,388,620,224,200,157,58,75,619,616,316],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.meditationsbybilly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1176"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.meditationsbybilly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.meditationsbybilly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meditationsbybilly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meditationsbybilly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1176"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.meditationsbybilly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1176\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2441,"href":"https:\/\/www.meditationsbybilly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1176\/revisions\/2441"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meditationsbybilly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.meditationsbybilly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meditationsbybilly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meditationsbybilly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}