👋 Hey phi-lazy-phers
I don’t have a favorite philosopher, but there is certainly one who has shaped my own philosophy the most up to this point: Lucius Annaeus Seneca the Younger, or as he is more commonly known, Seneca.
He was trained by Attalus the Stoic, so it’s no surprise that many of his beliefs are rooted in Stoic principles. He dealt with health issues for many of his younger years before being elected into the Roman Senate. He was then banished to live in exile for eight years (this is where his earliest surviving work begins). He was able to come back to Rome as a tutor and then an advisor for the next emperor, Nero. After many years serving Nero, though, his relationship with the emperor took a sour turn, eventually leading to Seneca’s death.
Seneca was a very wealthy politician, and made some of his money in questionable dealings, as many powerful men have done throughout history. As such, the point of this post is not to claim he’s the perfect philosophical role model. He has, however, contributed a great deal to the world of philosophy through his eloquent and soul-piercing writings and lessons. My favorite of which is entitled, “On the Shortness of Life.” Many of the quotes below will be from this [appropriately] short book.
It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it.
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People are frugal in guarding their personal property; but as soon as it comes to squandering time they are most wasteful of the one thing in which it is right to be stingy.
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You are living as if destined to live forever; your own fragility 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?
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But learning how to live takes a whole life, and, which may surprise you more, it takes a whole life to learn how to die.
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So you must not think a man has lived long because he has white hair and wrinkles: he has not lived long, just existed long. For suppose you should think that a man had had a long voyage who had been caught in a raging storm as he left the 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.
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But if each of us could have the tally of his future years set before him, as we can of our past years, how alarmed would be those who saw only a few years left ahead, and how carefully would they use them!
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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. The whole future lies in uncertainty: live immediately.
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But life is very short and anxious for those who forget the past, neglect the present, and fear the future.
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It is better to understand the balance-sheet of one’s own life than of the corn trade.
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We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.
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Until we have begun to go without them, we fail to realize how unnecessary many things are. We’ve been using them not because we needed them but because we had them.
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If a man knows not to which port he sails, no wind is favorable.
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Every night before going to sleep, we must ask ourselves: what weakness did I overcome today? What virtue did I acquire?
I read many of the above quotes quite regularly, yet they still find a way to hit me just as hard every single time. It’s no wonder Seneca regularly appears in these weekly posts.
Okay, are you up for another challenge this week? Place a notebook by your bed and each night before you fall asleep, ask yourself those two final questions from Seneca:
What weakness did I overcome today?
What virtue did I acquire or exemplify today?
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✌️ Until next week, remember the future is uncertain, so you should live immediately. Oh, and happy philosophizing.
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