John Donne, excerpt from Devotions
"Meditation I" covers the idea life, well lived through right health, meat, drink, air, etc., is brought to end by "Sickness unprevented for all our diligence". As a result of our inability to control death, Donne writes that man has a duty to "not only to destroy and execute himself, but to presage that execution upon himself". In other words, to live in control and to the fullest extent of life.