The 5 Types of Wealth: A Transformative Guide to Design Your Dream Life

Bloom argues that time tends to pass more quickly than people think, and it is easy to become complacent about how one’s time is spent. As children age and become adults, they tend to spend much less time with their family members as they become busier with their own lives. Friendships, too, take up less time as people get older. In an opposite trend, more time is spent with colleagues. Bloom argues that being aware of these general trends can help people to remember to foster stronger bonds with friends and family, even when they are busy with work. The impermanence of people’s lives, and of different phases of life, is unavoidable, and Bloom hopes that by being aware of time’s fleeting nature, people will take action to improve their use of their own limited time.

Stoic philosophy reminds people that everyone must die. One of its classic phrases is “memento mori,” which is best translated as: “Remember that you must die.” To remind themselves of this fact, some people keep “memento mori” calendars to mark how many weeks they have lived and how many they approximately have left to live. Every culture has its own concept of time and its own way of interpreting the journey from birth to death.