By What are you doing today?
If you read this site, you’re probably familiar with my Memento Mori graph; a piece of paper with a hand drawn chart 52 blocks wide and 80 blocks tall which I use to maintain awareness of the passing of time by filling in one block for each week that passes.
It’s a valuable-and sometimes painful-means of self-assessment and motivation.
I’ve kept this piece of paper with me for around eight years now, since my first year in the military in 2002. A few days ago, I got sidetracked while working from my laptop and starting scrolling through old letters I had written.
In one of them to a friend, dated November 12th, 2002, I talked about making the Memento Mori paper and getting the idea from an article in National Geographic about a guy named Karl Stanley.
I still remembered Karl’s incredible story. At age 15, he took it upon himself to build his own submarine out of a ten foot steel pipe and began his way down a self educated, adventurous path following his ambitions and tempting fate on an almost daily basis.
I wondered what ever came of Karl, and a thank you from me was about eight years overdue for his graph idea. So I tracked him down and contacted him.
Karl no longer keeps his chart with him. As he put it, “Ironically, I don’t keep mine anymore- but I think if you look through my photos on here you will see I am making good use of my time.”
I flipped through some photos on Facebook of his life in tropical Roatan, checked out his website, saw the trailer for the movie about him and his business along with quite a few more major articles, and couldn’t agree more. He’s been busy, to say the least.
Karl no longer needs to keep his graph with him because making good use of the time in his life has become second nature; he doesn’t need a reminder anymore. He’s waking up every day and living in a completely unconventional life he set out to create for himself. One that very few people ever thought he’d be able to manage.
What are you doing today?
Want to go deep sea diving in a homemade yellow submarine? Who wouldn’t! Check out Karl’s site here.
