What Keats' headstone tells us about ourselves
How and in what will you be writ?
When Keats died in Italy of tuberculosis at just 25 years old, the furniture in his room was burned. He was buried in the Protestant cemetery in Rome. His headstone was not installed until two years later, bearing the now famous epitaph “Here lies the poet whose name was writ in water.”
Much has been written and surmised about the origin of this epitaph, with no clear answers. It seems we are mostly limited to an understanding based on the words of a later biographer and the young artist Severn who sat by his bedside as he died. Records, including Severn’s, refute the other words inscribed on his headstone of bitterness of heart at his enemies etc.
Why does Keats’ headstone matter to the leaders reading this newsletter?
Any marker on a grave is meant to tell some kind of a story about the person buried there, and remind us, too, of our own mortality, that each of us will, one day, be no more. Sometimes we choose the words for our headstone. Sometimes others do.
In Keats’ case, he seems to have chosen some, but not all of his words. Altogether, the words beg deeper understanding.
Further north in Europe, Nearly 150,000 Commonwealth soldiers are buried in over 350 different locations along the front lines of the Somme, in graveyards with thousands of the fallen, to single graves in villages near the places where the soldiers died. Though Americans may be more familiar with the extremely simple markings on veterans’ graves, after WWI the Commonwealth War Graves Commission allowed families to designate a religion for the graves, as well as to add a personal inscription— initially limited to 66 characters at a price of 3 1/2 pence per word. Over 229,000 graves bear these personal inscriptions, which vary in content from Biblical verses to addresses to the dead. They are short, and intensely personal, windows into the grief of a family and the memory of one forever lost.
Perhaps the most popularly known story of memento mori is Charles Dicken's’ The Christmas Carol. Scrooge’s visits from three ghosts take him back over his past, into his present and into the future he will reap if he doesn’t change his path. We read this story every Christmas, or listen to Patrick Stewart’s reading of it, as our own vicarious memento mori, and reminder to live and love the present. Most of us don’t have things laid out for us quite so clearly!
If someone has had the opportunity to prepare for their death, perhaps they also chose their own epitaph. Either way, to consider graves is an exercise in memento mori, that consideration of our mortality intended to provoke in us consideration of how it is we are living our lives. Socrates asks in Plato’s Phaedo: “The one aim of those who practice philosophy in the proper manner is to practice for dying and death.” Our society mostly attempts to avoid dying and death. But working against this tendency can be good for us— and good for living the life you are meant to live.
How have we lived our lives? What matters?
Self-reflection is a necessary part of leadership, often discussed relative to discreet incidents and decisions, but equally important as a discipline considering the arc of one’s life. This is a part of the dynamic nature of owning and shaping our stories, as well. While part of the work of owning our stories is how we look backwards, it is equally important to use that work to make our decisions looking forward, as well.
You might think of the work like this:
Self reflection —> making changes to shape one’s story going forward —> living (and working) your best life and contribution
As you look back over your life thus far, regardless of your age, consider:
What stands out as your most important contributions?
Where are the important areas of focus?
What are your important characteristics and values?
Where do you see gaps between what you are and what you might be?
These gaps may have nothing to do with accomplishments, and have more to do with being in the world. But maybe there are things left undone you want to prioritize.
When Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes died, he had his military service placed above his service on the Supreme Court, an interesting indicator of how it is he considered his lifetime of service and where it is that he put his priorities in retrospect.
As a prompt: If you were to die tomorrow, how would you want your stone to read? How would you want to be remembered? If you did not anticipate your death, how would others remember you on your stones?
Another long-lived perspective from Socrates: “The unexamined life is not worth living.” This is an intense exercise in the “Commit” part of The Grit Triad— owning our stories and doing the values and direction work of connection to core purpose.
It’s also an invitation, or perhaps a mandate, to think about how it is we are doing our work and living our lives. Are you living up to what it is you would hope might be on your grave stone, or written in your obituary? If you are not, what changes would you make?
The Memento Mori Worksheet below is for paid subscribers only (consider supporting this work by becoming one today, and thank you!)
PS GRIT AND GROWTH MINDSET FOR KIDS: The Grit Institute is proud to be partnering with Big Life Journal— with incredible resources for grit and resilience for kids! Our family has been fans for a long time, and we have their kids journals, their adult journal and posters we even took with us overseas. Check it out here!