There is a comforting fantasy in the idea of a final reckoning, some distant day when everything will be weighed and measured at last. Until that day comes, we can postpone the hard questions. We can tell ourselves there will be time later to become the person we meant to be.

Camus demolishes this comfort. The judgment is not coming. It is already here. It arrived this morning when you woke up and faced the day’s first choice. It will come again tonight when you review what you did with the hours you were given. Every day is a verdict.

This is not about guilt or punishment in some cosmic sense. It is simpler and more immediate than that. Each day you act, and your actions accumulate into a life. The person you are becoming is not determined by some future transformation you plan to undergo. It is being determined right now, by what you do today.

The narrator of The Fall learns this too late. He spent years believing he was good while living on the surface of his life, never examining his choices. When clarity finally came, he saw that the judgment had been taking place all along, in every small moment he had failed to notice.

You do not need to wait for the end to know yourself. Look at today. What did you choose? That is your verdict, renewed each morning.