Commentary on Meditations: B2:2

see Meditations 12.19

Whatever it is, this being of mine is made up of flesh, breath, and directing mind. Now the flesh you should disdain - blood, bones, a mere fabric and network of nerves, veins, and arteries. Consider too what breath is: wind - and not even a constant, but all the time being disgorged and sucked in again. That leaves the third part, the directing mind. Quit your books - no more hankering: this is not your gift. No, think like this, as if you were on the point of death: 'you are old; don't then let this directing mind of yours be enslaved any longer - no more jerking to the strings of selfish impulse, no more disquiet at your present or suspicion of your future fate.

In the category of things 'not up to us' are: our bodies and our deaths.  True, what is 'up to us' is choosing whether or not to eat lots of food or to exercise and get fit, but ultimately, we don't have control over our bodies if we get leukemia (bone and blood cancer) or any other sort of disease.  And as for death, we truly don't have control over our deaths (assuming we will never commit suicide).  In other words, we don't know if a meteor will hit us or if a volcano will vaporize us and all the people in our city.  In summary, we don't have true control over our bodies and our death.  And furthermore, we would be wise to be aware that death hangs over us every day.

Therefore, knowing this, the question remains: how best to live the life you have now?  Will you live it in selfish impulse?

The Hedonists (see Hedonism) believed that the ultimate purpose of life is to maximize pleasure.  Eat til you're stuffed - every day!  Drink til you're drunk - every day!  Dance like there's no tomorrow - every day!  Don't do a single thing that will cause you pain.

Play this out in your mind.  Ask yourself; do you really want a 600-pound life?  Will that burger really make you happy and content?  Spending one-more-minute on Snapchat, scrolling Twitter or Instagram - will that make you happy?  Studies show that the opposite is true; these bad habits are causing depression.

"No more jerking to the strings of impulse."  Marcus tells us that these things (pleasure, disquiet, mindless scrolling) will not help us find contentment.

Listen to how ridiculous this sounds if these words were engraved on someone's tombstone:
- Here lies Nancy, who loved to eat. (her burial plot was double-wide)
- Here lies James, who loved to spend hours on Instagram
- Here lies Susan, who got the top score on a video game
- Here lies Kurt, who watched every episode on Netflix

Utterly laughable.

What do you want to be said of you?  Do you want people to say you were a kind person, who helped others?  Who was happy and content?  Or do you want people to say, "yup, they loved their food, social media and they lived for himself."

Ponder on that.