Short spoken excerpt (YouTube) in which Ben Greenfield summarizes a stoic exercise from Arthur Brooks' book From Strength to Strength: visualize the death of a loved one and your own death, imagining thoughts, regrets, and what would be wished or said in those moments as a powerful reflective practice.
Chapters
Well, I was recently reading a book, really good book, called From Strength to Strength by a friend of mine named Arthur Brooks. And in it, he talks about these stoic practices of pondering your death. Now I'll raise the stoics. 1 ponder your death, but also ponder your lover's death. Their dead. You're dead. And imagine what thoughts are going through your head in that moment. What you think you'll wish you'd have said to them as you look down upon their dead body. And what you may be wishing you'd have done together. And then flip flop that now you're dead and they're looking down on you. What are they thinking about you? What are they saying about you? What are they feeling about you? It's powerful. Powerful visualization.