Seneca — On the Shortness of Life
“Life is long enough, and a sufficiently generous amount has been given to us for the highest achievements if it were all well invested. But when it is wasted in heedless luxury and spent on no good activity, we are forced at last by death’s final constraint to realize that it has passed away before we knew it was passing. So it is: we are not given a short life but we make it short, and we are not ill-supplied but wasteful of it. Just as when ample and princely wealth falls to a bad owner it is squandered in a moment, but wealth however modest, if entrusted to a good custodian, increases with use, so our lifetime extends amply if you manage it properly.”
Seneca was a Stoic philosopher who believed that life was long for those who did not squander their time. Most of the time, we are not actually living life but simply existing — allowing life to happen to us rather than taking the reigns to live the lives we want to live.
Life is long, Seneca says, if you know how to use it. It seems that we are not so different from the people Seneca was surrounded by during the 1st century. We are, after all, of the same species, and it would be more of a surprise if we were different from those before us.
No matter how technologically advanced our society becomes, we still manage to repeatedly commit the same follies, waste time and torture ourselves instead of educating ourselves and investing our time in the things that will develop us into better versions of ourselves.
Life is long if you know how to use it. But one man is gripped by insatiable greed, another by a laborious dedication to useless tasks. One man is soaked in wine, another sluggish with idleness. One man is worn out by political ambition, which is always at the mercy of the judgment of others. Another through hope of profit is driven headlong over all lands and seas by the greed of trading.
Some are tormented by a passion for army life, always intent on inflicting dangers on others or anxious about danger to themselves. Some are worn out by the self-imposed servitude of thankless attendance on the great. Many are occupied by either pursuing other people’s money or complaining about their own. Many pursue no fixed goal, but are tossed about in ever-changing designs by a fickleness which is shifting, inconstant and never satisfied with itself.
We often get obsessed and addicted throughout our lives with things that bring us short-term pleasures. We get greedy for power, fame, money, prestige and status. We indulge in feeling good through drugs and alcohol, focused on distracting ourselves from the looming thoughts of a greater purpose, a better future by indulging in artificial methods of temporary euphoria.
Life is hard, life is suffering, life is painful, life is unfair. People you love and care about betray you, lie to you, hurt you and manipulate you, while the people you hate seem to be living the perfect life, filled with happiness and void of worry.
It makes sense that sometimes, we just want to be able to drown our sorrows and forget about the pain just for a few seconds. The burden of life is often very heavy, even in our privileged positions and rather comfortable lives.
But there is really no time to be feeling bad about ourselves. Life is moving through its course, whether you like it or not. Time is indifferent to your suffering, and it will never slow down for you no matter how much you complain, yell and cry.
Your time is valuable, and it is the only thing that you cannot ever get back. Life is long if you use your time deliberately and carefully. Life can be fulfilling if you invest your time in the right things, the right people and the right experiences.
Men do not let anyone seize their estates, and if there is the slightest dispute about their boundaries they rush to stones and arms; but they allow others to encroach on their lives — why, they themselves even invite in those who will take over their lives. You will find no one willing to share out his money; but to how many does each of us divide up his life! People are frugal in guarding their personal property; but as soon as it comes to squandering time they are most wasteful of the one thing in which it is right to be stingy.
We’re prioritizing the wrong things. We care so much about accumulating wealth, getting the best jobs that will impress our friends and family and having fun with drugs and alcohol that we are willing to squander the very thing that we can never get back. We live everyday like we are going to live forever, like the future is predetermined by your expectations and will proceed as you envisioned.
But why are you so confident that everything will go as planned?
You are living as if destined to live for ever; your own frailty never occurs to you; you don’t notice how much time has already passed, but squander it as though you had a full and overflowing supply — though all the while that very day which you are devoting to somebody or something may be your last. You act like mortals in all that you fear, and like immortals in all that you desire.
You will hear many people saying: ‘When I am fifty I shall retire into leisure; when I am sixty I shall give up public duties.’ And what guarantee do you have of a longer life? Who will allow your course to proceed as you arrange it? Aren’t you ashamed to keep for yourself just the remnants of your life, and to devote to wisdom only that time which cannot be spent on any business? How late it is to begin really to live just when life must end!
We wait and procrastinate on finding out what we are passionate about. We endure jobs that we absolutely hate and significant others that we don’t love because we live life passively — waiting for life to hand us things, like we deserve them.
We put up with things and make excuses to not chase after the things we truly care about and love. We tell ourselves that we have to be patient without doing the work and taking action, because we believe that everything will work out on its own one day. We believe if we just sit here and hope, everything will come your way. How long do you plan on waiting for something miraculous to happen? How long are you planning on making excuses, thinking that you have an infinite basket of time left for your life?
The actual time you have — which reason can prolong though it naturally passes quickly — inevitably escapes you rapidly: for you do not grasp it or hold it back or try to delay that swiftest of all things, but you let it slip away as though it were something superfluous and replaceable.
Every second you waste in activities that do not provide you with the skills and knowledge for a brighter future, a better you, is a precious commodity that you will never get back.
You’ve already wasted a good portion of your life allowing others to dictate your life and influence your desire, your aspirations, your future. You must take the time to plan what exactly you want your life to look like and how you are going to get there.
I want to implant a sense of urgency in your mind. You really don’t have as much time as you think you have. Because learning how to live your life, says Seneca, takes a whole life, which means you have no more time to waste.
Learning how to live takes a whole life, and, which may surprise you more, it takes a whole life to learn how to die.
