Walk the long gallery of the past, of empires and kingdoms succeeding each other without number. And you can also see the future, for surely it will be exactly the same, unable to deviate from the present rhythm. It’s all one whether we’ve experienced forty years or an aeon. What more is there to see?
—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 7.49
All things die. Not just people but companies, kingdoms, religions, and ideas—eventually. The Roman Republic lasted 450 years. The Roman Empire, of which Marcus Aurelius was considered to be one of the “five good emperors,” lasted 500 years. The longest recorded life of a human being is 122 years. The average life expectancy in the United States is a little over seventy-eight years. In other countries, in other eras, it has been more and it has been less. But in the end, we all succumb, as Marcus said, to the rhythm of events—of which there is always a final, determined beat. There is no need to dwell on this fact, but there is no point in ignoring it either.
* Source: The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman