We Must Seize What Flees

[DISCLAIMER]

There’s a line on lyricist Murs’s song “Woke Up Dead”, produced by Jesse Shatkin and from the album Have a Nice Life (2015), that states “gettin’ older as my life gets shorter.” It’s the sort of message that at first may seem like a throwaway line.

Of course, we get older as our lives get shorter. Still, I wonder about how often (or not) people contemplate their own mortality. With each passing day, they grow older while their lives get shorter. All the while, people distract themselves from this fundamental truth.

Personally, I don’t consider that to be a method of rational living. Ergo, I appreciate reminders regarding the impermanence and uncertainty of life. Tick, tick, tick, tick… a clock reminds me that an inescapable death can occur at any moment, or I hear a lyricist’s prompt about death.

It could be my demise, the parting of a loved one, a client whose life expires, and even you. Murs’s line represents this matter succinctly. When thinking about his reminder, I contemplate the psychotherapeutic modality I practice, as well as a book that I’ve been steadily reading.

As Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) is informed by Stoic philosophy, this blog entry is part of an ongoing series regarding a book entitled The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman.

In REBT, through the proverbial lens of the ABC model, I think about the self-disturbing belief that is demandingness. This mental script has specific words which readily identify it, such as “should,” “must,” and “ought,” and derivatives thereunto (i.e., better, have to, gotta, etc.).

There are flexible demands (e.g., you preferably shouldn’t drink poison) and rigid demands (e.g., you absolutely have to respect me). In The Daily Stoic, the authors quote ancient Stoic philosopher Seneca who utilized a flexible recommendatory demand when stating (page 149):

Let us therefore set out whole-heartedly, leaving aside our many distractions and exert ourselves in this single purpose, before we realize too late the swift and unstoppable flight of time and are left behind. As each day arises, welcome it as the very best day of all, and make it your own possession. We must seize what flees.

Seneca flexible advised that “we must seize what flees” regarding the passage of time when heading toward an unavoidable death, in unison with Murs’s perspective about “gettin’ older as my life gets shorter.” About this outlook, authors of The Daily Stoic state (page 149):

You will only get one shot at today. You have only twenty-four hours with which to take it. And then it is gone and lost forever. Will you fully inhabit all of today? Will you call out, “I’ve got this,” and do your very best to be your very best?

I appreciate the authors having used the phrase “I’ve got this,” which is a form of high frustration tolerance (HFT). It’s the antidote to low frustration tolerance (LFT), which uses phrases such as “I can’t stand it!” For illustrative purposes, I now invite you to conduct a brief REBT exercise.

Think about your inevitable death. If this mere suggestion invokes an LFT narrative (e.g., I couldn’t bear to do that), then I encourage you to challenge the unhelpful script with an HFT phrase (e.g., I can tolerate this).

As you’re contemplating your inexorable death, I invite you to also think about everyone you currently know, have ever known, and ever will know. All of them remain subject to the grip of death, as well. Thus, everyone alive is gettin’ older as their lives are gettin’ shorter.

Rather than distracting from this fundamental truth, you can use HFT to embrace what unsurprisingly will come to pass. Now, you can take hold of what life you have left to live by seizing what flees! Regarding this matter, authors of The Daily Stoic conclude (page 149):

What will you manage to make of today before it slips from your fingers and becomes the past? When someone asks you what you did yesterday, do you really want the answer to be “nothing”?

In this very moment, you’re still alive. All the same, from the time you began reading this post until this moment, the past has already transpired. It’s irreplaceably gone. So, too, is the fact that you’re unperceivably older than when you started reading, as life has gotten slightly shorter.

In the interest of HFT, you can stand admitting this fact. Furthermore, you can seize what flees by deliberately reminding yourself of how precious moments of your life are ever-slipping by. What you do with the remaining ticks of the clock are up to you. Tick, tick, tick, tick…

If you’re looking for a provider who tries to work to help understand how thinking impacts physical, mental, emotional, and behavioral elements of your life—helping you to sharpen your critical thinking skills, I invite you to reach out today by using the contact widget on my website.

As the world’s foremost hip hop-influenced REBT psychotherapist, I’m pleased to try to help people with an assortment of issues from anger (hostility, rage, and aggression) to relational issues, adjustment matters, trauma experience, justice involvement, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, anxiety and depression, and other mood or personality-related matters.

At Hollings Therapy, LLC, serving all of Texas, I aim to treat clients with dignity and respect while offering a multi-lensed approach to the practice of psychotherapy and life coaching. My mission includes: Prioritizing the cognitive and emotive needs of clients, an overall reduction in client suffering, and supporting sustainable growth for the clients I serve. Rather than simply trying to help you to feel better, I want to try to help you get better!

Deric Hollings, LPC, LCSW

Photo credit, fair use

References:

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Holiday, R. and Hanselman, S. (2016). The daily stoic: 366 meditations on wisdom, perseverance, and the art of living. Penguin Random House LLC. Retrieved from https://www.pdfdrive.com/the-daily-stoic-366-meditations-on-wisdom-perseverance-and-the-art-of-living-d61378067.html

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