The Roman Stoics would say MEMENTO MORI, or “remember you must die.” Ok, I must die. Well what of it? What does it require of me?
It leaves you hanging.
But the psychological sledgehammer of one of the most controversial lines of another Stoic, Epictetus, strikes differently. He tells the shell-shocked young men who travel across the seas to sit before him that Η ΘΥΡΑ ΗΝΟΙΚΤΑΙ, or “the door stands open.”
As with most things Epictetus, there are multiple layers built into one sentence. What does he mean?
First is that you’re going to die. The actual cause of your death is usually outside of your control, but what is within your control is how you choose to meet it. The door is over there and I am over here.
Epictetus reminds us of our choices: I can crawl to it, lamenting along the way; or I can try to run away from it, only for its gravitational force to pull me back, just as it pulled back the ~120 billion humans who have ever lived before me and Gilgamesh himself who sought to outrun it; or I can choose to walk with confidence to it and through it, having meditated on life, on dying, and on death, and thus able to meet it with a quiet resolve.
Second is that you're not dead. You’re still breathing, pumping blood, witness to the stars at night, the sea, and the cold mountains, and for this we ought to be grateful.
Third is that you can die. What of it? Epictetus is no advocate of suicide, believing that if you have one ounce of value left to add to this world and mankind, you have a moral duty to stay alive for their sake even if you don't care to for your own sake.
His point is that if you’re so committed to the idea that you're a victim, you are in fact not a victim, for you possess a choice: to bear it or not. If you feel you were dealt a bad hand by the universe or God or fate, and if you believe that your family or friends have done you some irreparable harm, then it is within your power to choose not to bear that burden and to walk through that door.
We have two choices: on the one hand, we can choose to end it all; on the other hand, if we choose to stay, then it is our duty to stop blaming others for our problems, to stop the woe-is-me, and to remember our place in society as fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, and citizens.
Epictetus reminds us that we always possess a choice, no matter how bad things seem; that we are here by choice.
Unendurable evils suddenly seem endurable and almost trivial in comparison to the enormity of nonexistence.
Fourth is a profoundly Epictetian point. The door was cast open for us, Epictetus tells us, and that God did this so that He could recall us to our ancient home or, if the situation dictates, we can walk through it of our own accord in order to preserve the one thing Epictetus valued above all else, as only a former slave could - freedom.
No tyrant can dominate you in death. No possession can hold sway over your mind. You can be forced to commit no evil. In death, if absolutely necessary because all other avenues have been removed, you can preserve your nobility and pride and humanity.
The door does indeed stand open and this is not a curse - it is a blessing.