“It’s not that we have a short time
to live, but that we waste a lot of it”. Lucius Annaeus
Seneca, in his book, ON THE SHORTNESS OF
LIFE.
This
lesson and the following extracts that follow, are some of the very powerful
lessons I learnt reading Lucius’ book. I hope to start the New Year on this
note.
It
is not that we have a short space of time, but that we waste much of it. Life
is long enough, and it has been given in sufficiently generous measure to allow
the accomplishment of the very greatest things if the whole of it is well
invested.
The
part of life we really live is small. For all the rest of existence is not
life, but merely time.
In
guarding their fortune men are often closefisted, yet, when it comes to the
matter of wasting time, in the case of the one thing in which it is right to be
miserly, they show themselves most prodigal. And so I should like to lay hold
upon someone from the company of older men and say: “I see that you have
reached the farthest limit of human life, you are pressing hard upon your
hundredth year, or are even beyond it; come now, recall your life and make a
reckoning. Consider how much of your time was taken up with a moneylender, how
much with a mistress, how much with a patron, how much with a client, how much
in wrangling with your wife, how much in punishing your slaves, how much in
rushing about the city on social duties. Add the diseases which we have caused
by our own acts, add, too, the time that has lain idle and unused; you will see
that you have fewer years to your credit than you count
You
will hear many men saying: “After my fiftieth year I shall retire into leisure,
my sixtieth year shall release me from public duties.” And what guarantee,
pray, have you that your life will last longer? Who will suffer your course to
be just as you plan it? Are you not ashamed to reserve for yourself only the remnant
of life, and to set apart for wisdom only that time which cannot be devoted to
any business?
How
late it is to begin to live just when we must cease to live! What foolish
forgetfulness of mortality to postpone wholesome plans to the fiftieth and
sixtieth year, and to intend to begin life at a point to which few have
attained!
I
am often filled with wonder when I see some men demanding the time of others
and those from whom they ask it most indulgent. Both of them fix their eyes on
the object of the request for time, neither of them on the time itself; just as
if what is asked were nothing, what is given, nothing. Men trifle with the most
precious thing in the world; but they are blind to it because it is an
incorporeal thing, because it does not come beneath the sight of the eyes, and
for this reason it is counted a very cheap thing—nay, of almost no value at
all. Men set very great store by pensions and doles, and for these they hire
out their labour or service or effort. But no one sets a value on time; all use
it lavishly as if it cost nothing. But see how these same people clasp the
knees of physicians if they fall ill and the danger of death draws nearer, see
how ready they are, if threatened with capital punishment, to spend all their
possessions in order to live! So great is the inconsistency of their feelings
Finally,
everybody agrees that no one pursuit can be successfully followed by a man who
is preoccupied with many things—eloquence cannot, nor the liberal studies—since
the mind, when distracted, takes in nothing very deeply, but rejects everything
that is, as it were, crammed into it. There is nothing the busy man is less
busied with than living: there is nothing that is harder to learn.
Be Inspired!
Remain Motivated!
Reference:
Lucius, A.S On The Shortness of Life
