“When giving your child or wife a kiss, repeat to yourself, ‘I am kissing a mortal.’” – Epictetus Change is a universal law of nature. Things are changing constantly. Life is ephemeral—people we care about may be snatched from us in a snap, without warning. This is why Marcus Aurelius often reminds himself of the time as a river metaphor, in which everything flows past: “Think often on the swiftness with which the things that exist and that are coming into existence are swept past us and carried out of sight. For all substance is as a river in ceaseless flow, its activities ever changing and
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