Memento mori. Remember death.
Such were the words whispered into the ears of a victorious Roman general as he returned home to the cheers of citizens.
It’s easy to simplify the phrase – as the Christians would centuries later – in order to perceive it as a reminder of one’s mortality, but what the Romans were truly trying to warn their great military leaders of was the deadly vice that is vanity.
Consider Shelley’s sonnet, Ozymandias:
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Yahoo. Compaq. Enron. General Motors. Some of the many Ozymandias’ of our time that have rested on their laurels until their inevitable falls. Of course, such oversight is not limited to the giants of industry. To ignore the fact that hubris often accompanies even the smallest successes is to risk courting it yourself.
So embrace your achievements. Be proud of your success. But remember this word of warning.
Memento mori.