Matt’s Mix Tape, Vol. 137
Hi, I’m Matt Tillotson, and this is Matt’s Mix Tape: essays + links to help you remix and recreate at midlife.
This week’s Mix:
Six lessons learned writing 136 newsletters
It’s not too late
Accepting death as fuel for life
This week’s Florida photo
Six lessons learned writing 137 newsletters
Suck for awhile. World-build. Let things evolve.
These are some of the lessons I shared about newsletter writing with my Write of Passage mentor class this week.
If you’re interested in six big takeaways from writing 137 newsletters—including what happened when I quit for five weeks—you can read them here.
Accepting death as fuel for life
Remember you must die.
That’s the translation for “Memento Mori,” a phrase popularized in Ancient Rome. After a military victory, Roman generals would parade through the streets in chariots.
However, a slave also sat in each chariot. Their job?
To whisper, “Memento Mori.”
The generals were celebrated. But they were accompanied by the reminder that life is fleeting. They could not rest in the celebratory moment.
Corey Wilks, Clinical Psychologist, Executive Coach, and Write of Passage mentor, discussed Memento Mori in his session this week.
Corey lost three friends in quick succession, all too young. And he had his own brush with mortality. The experiences cemented the Memento Mori concept in him:
“If this has been my last week alive, am I satisfied with how I lived each day?”
This question is different from the typical “What would you do if you had seven days to live.” You can plan that out, party, skydive, whatever. It’s not a helpful thought experiment.
Taking inventory of how you’ve already spent your last seven days, going about your normal day-to-day routine, is way more powerful.
One day, Corey said, you will realize it was your last week alive. And we don’t know when that will occur.
Momento Mori shouldn’t be scary or depressing. It should be fuel to think hard about how we spend our time and the impact we want to have in life.
It’s not too late
On Twitter, a woman named Miranda was bummed out. Her dad wouldn’t be going to Disney World with her any more:
Sad. I assumed her dad must be in his 80s and struggling with late-life challenges.
Her dad is fifty-five years old.
He said he’s too old.
My mouth fell open reading Miranda’s thread.
If you’re at midlife it is not too late for a physical transformation.
Arthur Boorman is was a disabled veteran of the Gulf War. Doctors told him he’d never walk on his own again. Then he read an article about yoga and Diamond Dallas Page.
He emailed Dallas, struck up a friendship, and this happened:
I think about this video often.
It wasn’t too late for Arthur. It’s not too late for you, either.
This week’s Florida photo
Hello to 22 new subscribers!
Thank you for reading.
And whatever you’re working on or working through: keep showing up.
A lot of fuel in this newsletter, time to fill up the tank and get to work!
137 issues is an incredible accomplishment, you continue to be a big inspiration, Matt!