Book Review of Seneca’s:

On the Shortness of Life
Life is long if you know how to use it.

“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 realize that it has 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. Just as when ample and princely wealth falls to a bad owner it is squandered in a moment, but wealth however modest, if entrusted to a good custodian, increases with use, so our lifetime extends amply if you manage it properly.

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 ahead, and how carefully would they use them! Often a very old man has no other proof of his long life than his age.

We cannot choose our parents but we can choose whose children we would want to be…”

Lucius Annaeus Seneca the Younger
– Famous Roman philosopher and father of the modern essay
– Many gems in his work, this is a collection of three big essays
– Azam’s summary: “Thoughts that will help you make the most of your very limited time.”

Act NOW and Adapt:

“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? The whole future lies in uncertainty: live immediately. Listen to the cry of our greatest poet, who as though inspired with divine utterance sings salutary verses:

Life’s finest day for wretched mortals here
Is always first to flee.

‘Why do you linger?’ he means. ‘Why are you idle? If you don’t grasp it first, it flees.’ And even if you do grasp it, it will still flee. So you must match time’s swiftness with your speed in using it, and you must drink quickly as though from a rapid stream that will not always flow.

Thus: ‘I shall sail unless something happens’; and ‘I shall become praetor unless something prevents me’; and ‘My business will be successful unless something interferes.’ That is why we say that nothing happens to the wise man against his expectation. We remove him not from the chances that befall mankind but from their mistakes, nor do all things turn out for him as he wished but as he reckoned—and above all he reckoned that something could block his plans. But inevitably the mind can cope more easily with the distress arising from disappointed longings if you have not promised it certain success.”

Eat Demons and You Take Their Power:

“He who fears death will never do anything worthy of a living man. If a man stirs himself to face the worst of disasters and defeats the evils which overwhelm others, then he wears those very sorrows like a sacred badge. For we are naturally disposed to admire more than anything else the man who shows fortitude in adversity.

In any case the mind must be recalled from external objects into itself: it must trust in itself, rejoice in itself, admire its own things; it must withdraw as much as possible from the affairs of others and devote its attention to itself; it must not feel losses and should take a kindly view even of misfortunes. When a shipwreck was reported and he heard that all his possessions had sunk, our founder Zeno said, ‘Fortune bid me a less encumbered philosopher.’

When a tyrant threatened to kill the philosopher Theodorus, and indeed to leave him unburied, he replied, ‘You can please yourself, and my half-pint of blood is in your power; but as to burial, you are a fool if you think it matters to me whether I rot above or below ground.’ Julius Canus, an outstandingly fine man, whom we can admire even though he was born in our age, had a long dispute with Gaius; and as he was going away that Phalaris said to him, ‘In case you are deluding yourself with foolish hopes, I have ordered you to be led off to execution.’ His reply was, ‘I thank you, noble emperor.’”

(Thankful Caz’ – Ain’t No Thing – AF)

Also you can download the Guide and review above in a .pdf form by clicking HERE.

That’s the ONE page Quantum Book Review of “On the Shortness of Life” by Seneca.

Thanks!  = )