Lucius Annacus Senca
Much changes over time, and still, there is also that which remains the same. Written circa 49 AD, “On The Shortness Of Life” is a moral essay from Lucius Annacus Senca to his father-in-law Paulinus. Seneca shares his observations regarding “busy” individuals and the nature by which they allow life to pass by without “living” it. Although written nearly 2,075 years ago, the truth of his words ring as evidently true today as they did in his time. Despite the emergence and growing popularity of Mindfulness teaching and messages such as “The Power of Now” by Eckart Tolle, much of society runs without respect for the present moment nor the passage of time.
Before Mindfulness, the advice was to take leisure. What was meant by leisure, I suppose all Seneca alluded to was the idea of spending time with no other aim than to enjoy the moment one presently finds themselves. However, without knowing exactly what leisure is meant to be, what is clear is that his message is not to wait to take leisure until some long-delayed date such as retirement. First and foremost, we have no guarantee of making it to said date, and secondly, we have no guarantee of our physician's condition come this future date.
I’ll admit that I have never been fond of the idea of thinking about how much life I have remaining. I’ve never discounted that it could be a great motivator, nor that the idea of death around the corner would bring more gratitude to the present moment. To the contrary, I simply have never wanted to limit my days and believe I would only live to 90 or any other arbitrary age. Who knows the truth of our mortality, just because the recent trend in lifespan has been as such, does not guarantee the same trend for the future.
Although I may be unwilling to accept a cap on the number of years I could potentially live, I am willing to accept that no day is guaranteed. I understand the fragility of life and this book reminds me to cherish each day I am gifted.
Men covetously guard their property from waste, but when it comes to waste of time, they are most prodigal of that of which it would become them to be sparing. Lucius Annacus Senca : On The Shortness Of Life
You fear everything, like mortals as you are, and yet you desire everything as if you were immortals. Lucius Annacus Senca : On The Shortness Of Life
How late it is to begin life just when we have to be leaving it! Lucius Annacus Senca : On The Shortness Of Life
All his labours were based upon hopes and thoughts of leisure: this was the wish of him who could accomplish the wishes of all other men. Lucius Annacus Senca : On The Shortness Of Life
(...) for nothing can take deep root in a mind which is directed to some other subject, and which rejects whatever you try to stuff into it. Lucius Annacus Senca : On The Shortness Of Life
(...) one’s whole life must be spent in learning how to live, and, which may perhaps surprise you more, one’s whole life must be spent in learning how to die. Lucius Annacus Senca : On The Shortness Of Life
You have no grounds, therefore, for supposing that anyone has lived long, because he has wrinkles or grey hairs: such a man has not lived long, but has only been long alive. Lucius Annacus Senca : On The Shortness Of Life
Indeed, if the number of every man’s future years could be laid before him, as we can lay that of his past years, how anxious those who found that they had but few years remaining would be to make the most of them? Lucius Annacus Senca : On The Shortness Of Life
(...) men who are reminded by someone else when to bathe, when to swim, when to dine: they actually reach such a pitch of languid effeminacy as not to be able to find out for themselves whether they are hungry. Lucius Annacus Senca : On The Shortness Of Life
(...) your life will run its course when once it has begun, and will neither begin again or efface what it has done. It will make no disturbance, it will give you no warning of how fast it flies: it will move silently on: it will not prolong itself at the command of a king, or at the wish of a nation: as it started on its first day, so it will run: it will never turn aside, never delay. Lucius Annacus Senca : On The Shortness Of Life
As conversation, or reading, or deep thought deceives travellers, and they find themselves at their journey’s end before they knew that it was drawing near, so in this fast and never-ceasing journey of life, which we make at the same pace whether we are asleep or awake, busy people never notice that they are moving till they are at the end of it. Lucius Annacus Senca : On The Shortness Of Life
Present time is very short, so much so that to some it seems to be not time at all; for it is always in motion, and runs swiftly away: it ceases to exist before it comes, and can no more brook delay than can the universe or the host of heaven, whose unresting movement never lets them pause on their way. Lucius Annacus Senca : On The Shortness Of Life
Those men lead the shortest and unhappiest lives who forget the past, neglect the present, and dread the future: when they reach the end of it the poor wretches learn too late that they were busied all the while that they were doing nothing. Lucius Annacus Senca : On The Shortness Of Life
(...) very short must be the lives of those who work very hard to gain what they must work even harder to keep Lucius Annacus Senca : On The Shortness Of Life
The position of all busy men is unhappy, but most unhappy of all is that of those who do not even labour at their own affairs, (...) If such men wish to know how short their lives are, let them think how small a fraction of them is their own. Lucius Annacus Senca : On The Shortness Of Life
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