On The Shortness of Life
This was written almost 2000 years ago (around ad 49) by the great stoic philosopher Seneca the younger and it has great lessons for everyone on what is important and what is not.
You should definitely read it. It is not long. I have put a put interesting points and links to summaries and the full text below. Enjoy!
Don't
just exist but live - maximise life's
most precious commodity
'You
have been preoccupied while life hastens on. Meanwhile death will arrive, and
you have no choice in making yourself available for that'
You
think you will live for ever and waste time
'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! How stupid to forget our
mortality, and put off sensible plans to our fiftieth and sixtieth years,
aiming to begin life from a point at which few have arrived! '
Most people waste
life with no direction. They are just tossed about by external events and end up going nowhere
,For
suppose you should think that a man had had a long voyage who had been caught
in a raging storm as he left harbour, and carried hither and thither and driven
round and round in a circle by the rage of opposing winds? He did not have a
long voyage, just a long tossing about,.
You
have control of your life, don't blame your parents or your environment. You can change who you are and how you respond.
'We
are in the habit of saying that it was not in our power to choose the parents
who were allotted to us, that they were given to us by chance. But we can
choose whose children we would like to be'
Guard your time
'Be
careful of others who sabotage your time.How many days are left to you and not
taken by others?
How
many days has that defendant stolen from you? Or that candidate?....Or that
influential friend who keeps people like you not for friendship but for
display? Mark off, I tell you, and review the days of your life: you will see
that very few - the useless remnants - have been left to you.'
Don't
waste time on useless tasks
'dedication
to useless tasks'
Have
goals
'Many
pursue no fixed goal, but are tossed about in everchanging designs by a
fickleness which is shifting, inconstant and never satisfied with itself. Some
have no aims at all for their life's course, but death takes them unawares as
they yawn languidly'
Organise
and plan your day. A good way to do this is a daily journal
'But
the man who spends all his time on his own needs, who organizes every day as
though it were his last, neither longs for nor fears the next day'
Live
in the moment
'But
putting things off is the biggest waste of life: it snatches away each day as
it comes, and denies us the present by promising the future. The greatest
obstacle to living is expectancy, which hangs upon tomorrow and loses today.
You are arranging what lies in Fortune's control, and abandoning what lies in
yours'
Summary
Value
your time and don't waste it. Most people know this but don't do this. Common
sense is not common practice
Don't
put things off. Live in the present.
Do
not waste time on trivial worries.
Plan
and organise your time.
LInks
Link
to summary: https://dailystoic.com/on-the-shortness-of-life-seneca/
Link
to summary: https://jamesclear.com/book-summaries/on-the-shortness-of-life
Link
to full book: https://epdf.tips/on-the-shortness-of-life-penguin-great-ideas.html
Link
to full book: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/On_the_shortness_of_life
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