Inhabit the present. Marcus Aurelius 3.10

 

Live well in the present, with things and people you can approach personally, actually. Do not aspire to abstraction beyond your position, which Nature has made small in her grand scheme.

Πάντα οὖν ῥίψας ταῦτα μόνα τὰ ὀλίγα σύνεχε καὶ ἔτι συμμνημόνευε, ὅτι μόνον ζῇ ἕκαστος τὸ παρὸν τοῦτο, τὸ ἀκαριαῖον· τὰ δὲ ἄλλα ἢ βεβίωται ἢ ἐν ἀδήλῳ, μικρὸν μὲν οὖν ὃ ζῇ ἕκαστος· μικρὸν δὲ τὸ τῆς γῆς γωνίδιον ὅπου ζῇ· μικρὸν δὲ καὶ ἡ μηκίστη ὑστεροφημία καὶ αὕτη δὲ κατὰ διαδοχὴν ἀνθρωπαρίων τάχιστα τεθνηξομένων καὶ οὐκ εἰδότων οὐδὲ ἑαυτοὺς οὐδέ γε τὸν πρόπαλαι τεθνηκότα.

Cast away all these notes, holding back just a few in your memory, for each of us lives only now, in the fleeting moment of the present. All other moments are lost, whether because they are past or because they are uncertain, and so each of us lives only a little. The little corner of earth he inhabits is small, just like the greatest rumor of him handed down to posterity. Fame is the inheritance of little men who die so quickly that they don't even know themselves, let alone someone dead before their time.