Chapter 3 - On the Shortness of Life, by Seneca the Younger

Even though the best and brightest thinkers of all time have pondered on this theme, none of them have been able to adequately explain the paradox of human nature.

People don’t let others steal their property, and they rush to vigorously defend themselves if there is even the slightest controversy over the demarcation of land boundaries, yet they allow others to trespass on their very existence – indeed they themselves even collude with those who will eventually possess it!

No one can be found who wants to give away his money, but among how many does each one of us give away his life?

In protecting their wealth men are tight-fisted, but when it comes to the matter of time, in the case of the one thing in which it is wise to be parsimonious, they are actually generous to a fault.

And so as an example I would like to single one out from the company of older men and say: “I see that you have reached the end of your life, your are pushing hard on your hundredth year, or possibly are even older, come now, recall your life and make a reckoning.

Consider how much of your time was spent with money lenders, how much with a mistress, how much with a superior, how much with a business client, how much in arguing with your wife, how much in berating underlings, how much in hurrying about town fulfilling pointless social obligations.

Add the illnesses which you brought about by your own rash behavior as yet more time that has been allowed to pass by unused. You will see that you have less years to your credit than you first counted.

Search your memory and see if you ever had future plans and how few days have passed as you had intended them to. Recall when you ever had time to yourself, when the look on your face was ever relaxed, when you didn’t have anything on your mind,  what professional accomplishments you have achieved in so long a life, how many have taken time from you when you were not even aware of giving it away, how much was frittered away on pointless worry, in ignorant bliss, in the pursuit of pleasure, in the seductions of society, how little of yourself was left to you; you will see that you are dying before your time!”

What then is the reason for this?

You live as if you will live forever, no care for your mortality ever enters your head, you pay no mind to how much time has already gone by.

You waste time as if it was a limitless resource, when any moment you spend on someone else or some matter is potentially your last.

You possess a fear that is all too human but have the boundless desires of a god.

You will hear many men say: "When I’m fifty I’ll slow down; when I’m sixty, I’ll be ready for retirement.”

But what guarantee, pray, do you have that your life will last longer?

Who is going to make sure your life plays out just as you plan it?

Are you not ashamed to save for yourself only the last part of your life, and to set aside for knowledge only that time which can’t be spent on making money?

It is too late to begin living life just as it is ending! What stubborn denial of mortality to delay dreams to after your fiftieth and sixtieth year, and to plan on starting your life at a point that not everyone gets to.