Why I Read Seneca’s 2000-year-old Words Every Year
It was Christmas of 2017—a few days before the New Year. I had just finished listing my goals for the year ahead. 2018 was to be my fiftieth year, and as such, it was going to be my greatest one yet.
“It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it.” — Seneca
My goals included climbing Kilimanjaro with my son, visiting Japan with my family, walking the Camino de Santiago, completing a Pilates course, and participating in a guided Psychedelic trip.
A few days after Christmas, however, I broke my leg, and everything changed.
It was a severe double leg break, which meant that I ended up spending most of the following year recuperating on many different sofas.
The shock of my incapacitation coupled with lack of any exercise—particularly running—put me in such a reactive state that I quickly became angry, bitter and disenchanted with life.
However, I also had a lot of time to practice embracing boredom, doing nothing, and not having any guilt about it! Things improved after a few months as I got into a routine of physiotherapy, reading, and much contemplation.
The concept of time remained at the forefront of my mind—namely, how I wasn’t making the best use of my limited time on earth. I calculated that, if I were lucky, I’d have perhaps 30 to 35 years left to live, which translates to around 12,000 days. Approximately half would be consumed by sleep and other quotidian activities, leaving 6,000 days.
So, I had 6,000 days or 144,000 hours left to be me. Six thousand days left to just get as close as possible to the life that I was meant to live.
Doing the math was not only sobering, but a shock to my system.
Was I making full use of my time? Was I setting the goals I truly wanted? Was I spending enough time just being and experiencing this wonderful adventure called life?
“It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it. 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 realise that it had 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… Life is long if you know how to use it.”
The most significant influence on my thinking during my recuperation was Seneca the Younger, a Stoic Philosopher and writer from Roman times. I make sure I read his timeless 2,000-year-old essay, “On the Shortness of Life,” once every year. Seneca writes:
We can miss the most essential point about how to live. Life is more precious when we are present—not necessarily productive. Busyness often leads us to become more passive and less creative.
We take life for granted, as if we will live forever… that is, until we face events that challenge us, like the death of a loved one, divorce, losing our job, or bankruptcy.
At that moment of crisis or grief, we recognise that only “real” things matter.
We tell ourselves that we must take both life and death seriously. We start to accept that death is inevitable, and as such we begin to live life fiercely. We get present. We do the things that make our hearts purr. We begin living as if every day were our last.
Often, too, we live that kind of genuine life for a few weeks, maybe a month, but then slowly get sucked back into our old ways.
After the unexpected death of a good friend in May 2015, I wrote in my diary:
R is dead. Just like that. No long sickness. Within a few days, he was gone. Today, I have never felt more fragile. He was my age. Isn’t it time to stop the vagueness in my life and to start following what I truly desire? I feel like I need to simplify my life. To stop doing so many things and focus on the things that truly make me smile, cry, or on the things that make the hairs on my body stand up. I want to spend more time watching sunsets over the Mediterranean, taking long, beautiful walks in historical cities, feeling the fresh air all around me, reading, writing, and having good, powerful conversations. Most of all, I want to have the “urgency noose” on my neck removed. I want to be free to do anything and be anyone.
Nearly three years later, I’m no closer to living by the epiphany I recorded in my diary.
Why is that so? Why doesn’t that feeling of appreciating our time last? Why do we so quickly get back to the day-to-day “busyness” of living?
Seneca explains,
“No activity can be successfully pursued by an individual who is preoccupied … since the mind when distracted absorbs nothing deeply, but rejects everything which is, so to speak, crammed into it. Living is the least important activity of the preoccupied man, yet there is nothing which is harder to learn.”
How can we avoid becoming preoccupied and distracted? How can we make the most of our opportunities to grasp the present?
Get Off the Hamster Wheel
Most of us think we are what we do, or what we achieve. Our self-worth is linked to goals, achievements and things. However, that kind of thinking forces us into an unfulfilled lifestyle, which not only lacks meaning but also has no end point. In continually replacing old preoccupations with new ones, the wheel keeps going round and round. We run fast, but always in the same direction. We finally realise that we can never do enough to satisfy our inner hamster. That fulfilment can only come from within.
Don’t Allow Others to Hijack your Time
The worst way of squandering our time is probably allowing others to use it up frivolously. We end up surrendering our precious time—or worse, following their lead in meaningless activities. Seneca advises, “If such people want to know how short their lives are, let them reflect how small a portion is their own.”
Don’t Procrastinate
“The whole future lies in uncertainty: live immediately.” — Seneca
We often postpone our actions in the hopes that conditions will improve. Whether we delay marriage because our finances are not in order, hold off on starting that new business because the economy isn’t great, or postpone writing a book until we get an MFA, these are mere excuses that camouflage our fears. We are all afraid of taking the plunge. Without realizing it, we pass up opportunities all the time.
Seneca ends with these powerful words:
“No one will bring back the years; no one will restore you to yourself. Life will follow the path it began to take, and will neither reverse nor check its course. It will cause no commotion to remind you of its swiftness, but glide on quietly. It will not lengthen itself for a king’s command or a people’s favour. As it started out on its first day, so it will run on, nowhere pausing or turning aside. What will be the outcome? You have been preoccupied while life hastens on. Meanwhile, death will arrive, and you have no choice in making yourself available for that.”
For the past three months, I’ve been focusing on how I want to live for the rest of my life. Climbing Kilimanjaro would be fun, for instance, but it’s not something that I must do.
Instead, I’m focusing on my priorities: Revive my company, but in a new and distinctive way. Keep reading to satiate my curiosity. Keep writing to develop my inner voice. And, finally, always make time for the people who make my heart purr.
What are you still waiting for?
Prioritise.
Start living.