The Tail End: A Stoic Exercise for Time and Relationships

How many times might you see your parents again? The question can sound stark, but it points to a practical fact: important parts of life do not arrive in evenly spaced years. A relationship can have a long history behind it and fewer shared visits ahead than we tend to picture.

Writer Tim Urban explored this idea in “The Tail End”. He describes measuring life not only in years, but in experiences such as winters, ocean swims, books, and time with family. His example of seeing his parents less often after leaving home shows how much in-person time may already have passed by the time adult life begins. The numbers are personal estimates, not a forecast for anyone else.

Why this fits a Stoic practice

Seneca opens On the Shortness of Life by arguing that we waste much of a life that could be long enough. He writes, in Aubrey Stewart’s public-domain translation, “We do not have a very short time assigned to us, but we lose a great deal of it.” He isn't asking you to fill every hour. He wants you to catch the moments when habit or postponement is quietly choosing for you.

Marcus Aurelius returns to the present as the time we actually have. In George Long’s public-domain translation of Meditations 2.14, he writes that “the present is the only thing of which a man can be deprived.” A count of possible future visits can serve that reminder: it cannot tell us what will happen, but it can bring today’s choice into view.

That is the spirit of memento mori: remember that life is finite so you can meet it more clearly, not more fearfully. For a broader introduction, read our guide to memento mori in Stoic philosophy or our guide to practicing death meditation safely.

Estimate a kind of time you can picture

Choose a relationship or recurring experience. Then estimate how often it happens now and how many years you hope it might continue. Multiply the two numbers:

visits per year × estimated years = possible future visits

For example, if you usually visit a parent four times a year and imagine that pattern continuing for twelve years, the estimate is 4 × 12 = 48 visits. You might instead count shared meals, calls, holidays, or walks. The number is not a promise, and it leaves out the quality of each visit. It is a way to make an abstract future more concrete.

You can choose four different kinds of endpoint, depending on the question you want to consider:

• Your life: how many times might you repeat an activity?
• Someone else’s life: how many visits or conversations might remain with a person?
• Someone reaching an age: how many occasions before a child, friend, or relative reaches a chosen age or milestone?
• A fixed date: how many weekends, workdays, or gatherings remain before a move, retirement, trip, or other known date?

Keep the assumptions visible. A lifespan estimate is uncertain, and another person’s future is not yours to calculate with confidence. You can revise the count whenever circumstances change, or keep it as a rough prompt instead of a number to track.

Let the estimate become one action

A count is useful only if it returns you to the present. After making your estimate, ask: What is one thing I can do this week to be more present with this person?

The answer might be to call and listen without multitasking, set a date for a visit, ask about a story you have not heard, or put your phone away during dinner. Choose an action that fits your relationship and circumstances. You don't need to treat every meeting like a farewell. Just give this one your full attention.

Keep the reflection in view

StoicAdvice’s Memento Mori practice includes Life in weeks: a calendar of approximate weeks across a chosen lifespan estimate, with filled squares marking weeks lived. Use it for perspective, keeping in mind that no estimate can tell you how long you will live. The Tail End view in the app keeps rough estimates for the relationships and recurring experiences you choose, and you can revise them whenever your circumstances change. You can try a quick version below, which runs in your browser and keeps nothing, or see your whole life as a grid with the free life in weeks tool.

Translation sources: Seneca, On the Shortness of Life, trans. Aubrey Stewart, Project Gutenberg edition; Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 2.14, trans. George Long, Standard Ebooks.