ON THE SHORTNESS OF LIFE

 

On the Shortness of Life is a philosophical essay written by Latin author Lucius Seneca and published about 49 A.D.

The author wonders whether life is short or not. In the end Seneca acknowledges  that life is not short, but the time we spend living is fleeting.

“The problem, Paulinus, is not that we have a short life, but that we waste time. Life is long and there is enough of it to satisfy personal accomplishments if we use our hours well. But when time is squandered in the pursuit of pleasure or vain idleness, when it is spent with no real purpose, the finality of death fast approaches...”

The author accuses humankind, or at least most of them, of wasting their time doing nothing or pursueing vague goals.

Actually, one of the phrases that we say more often is "I will do that tomorrow". Saying this, we take for granted that there will be a tomorrow for us. Thinking that, we usually postpone a lot. This is one of the biggest mistakes we make. In life, nothing is for sure and we should not take anything for granted.

“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.”

We live as we have endless days, but it is not so. We are not immortal, though we tend to forget it. And we realize that when it is too late. When Fortune turns its back on us, we understand it. At this point, we pray to really live another day, just one. However, this is not always possible. 

“People are delighted to accept pensions and gratuities, for which they hire out their labour or their support or their services. But nobody works out the value of time: men use it lavishly as if it cost nothing. But if death threatens these same people, you will see them praying to their doctors; if they are in fear of capital punishment, you will see them prepared to spend their all to stay alive.”

Therefore, we should cherish every single day. We should focus only on the present, because the future is uncertain. We cannot plan our future, and, even if we could, we would miss our present.

"Can anything be more idiotic than certain people who boast of their foresight? They keep themselves officiously preoccupied in order to improve their lives; they spend their lives in organizing their lives. They direct their purposes with an eye to a distant future. 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. What are you looking at? To what goal are you straining?"

So, we should enjoy the moment without  worries or expectations.

Anyway, Seneca does not invite us to do necessarily extraordinary things.

To explain this, he makes the example of Augustus, who spent all his life conquering something, without ever having a day off. Did he really live?

Sometimes, we are so busy that we do not realize time is passing. We try running faster to achieve a goal we will never achieve, since we will move the finish line further and further. This situation will stress us in the long term.

For this reason, Seneca proposes us to avoid every passion  and everything that could unsettle us. Therefore, we should just do what makes us feel good.

Moreover, according to Seneca, we have to live only thinking about ourselves. It seems like a selfish way of living, but it is not.

We really live when we do something for ourselves. Instead, when we do something for someone else, it as if we give our hours to that person.

“Believe me, it is the sign of a great man, and one who is above human error, not to allow his time to be frittered away: he has the longest possible life simply because whatever time was available he devoted it entirely to himself.”

Sometimes, we allow other people to condition our life. But it is the bigger mistake that we can do. We have only one life. We are not cats, who have nine. We are just human beings.

At times, we work hard to prove someone that we are worth. But it is a wrong way of doing. We should do something only for ourselves and not for a sense of revenge or vanity.

Moreover, no matter how many years we live, but how we live. The number of our birthday does not say how we have lived, but says how long we have been on Earth. “Live” and “exist” have different meanings.

“So you must not think a man has lived long because he has white hair and wrinkles: he has not lived long, he just existed long.”

To conclude, this work wants to remind us to live and cherish every moment. In this way, we can approach our death without any regrets or fears. Only doing that, at Death’s door, the question “Am I satisfied with my life?” can be answered sincerely with a “Yes”.

“It takes the whole of life to learn how to live, and -what will perhaps make you wonder more - it takes the whole of life to learn how to die.”

Angelica Tozzi, 5sc B