The height of cultivation always runs to simplicity.
We spend so much time on stuff that doesn’t matter. Maybe it’s doomscrolling on our phone or answering emails. Maybe it’s arguing with your spouse, with your kids, with strangers on the internet.
You hate these things but you let them fill up so much of your life. Marcus Aurelius, frustrated with some obnoxious thing that was consuming his days, once asked himself, “You’re afraid of death because you won’t be able to do this anymore?”
That’s the thing about tempus fugit (time flies). It’s so clarifying. If you had unlimited time, maybe you wouldn’t mind spending two hours a day in traffic. Maybe you wouldn’t need to steer clear of the cesspool of Twitter or the bottomlessness of your inbox. If suddenly death were real to you—if you were given a few months or years to live—what would you immediately spend less time doing? What is the “this” that Marcus Aurelius referred to that you would cut out? —Bruce Lee