Is life really short?
A quick book recommendation - from 2000 years ago
Do you feel like you have enough time to do everything you want?
Does your life feel like it’s flying by?
Do your work and obligations eat up more and more and more of your time?
Have I got a book recommendation for you.
Today’s recommendation is “Of the Shortness of Life,” an essay by Seneca.
It’s about two thousand years old, but it feels like it was written today and addressed to me, specifically. (Reading old books really reminds you that nothing ever changes.)
Let’s get a feel for his main idea:
We do not have a very short time assigned to us, but we lose a great deal of it: life is long enough to carry out the most important projects: we have an ample portion, if we do but arrange the whole of it aright: but when it all runs to waste through luxury and carelessness, when it is not devoted to any good purpose, then at the last we are forced to feel that it is all over, although we never noticed how it glided away.
Thus it is: we do not receive a short life, but we make it a short one, and we are not poor in days, but wasteful of them.
So - yeah, life is kinda short.
But we make it shorter for ourselves.
So, is this a “hustle, work harder” essay?
I thought it was going to be when I started reading it. But it turns out - it’s not that at all.
Seneca is not about that grindset mindset. He isn’t telling you to spend more time at the office. Actually, listen to him here:
You will hear many men say, “After my fiftieth year I will give myself up to leisure: my sixtieth shall be my last year of public office”: and what guarantee have you that your life will last any longer? who will let all this go on just as you have arranged it? are you not ashamed to reserve only the leavings of your life for yourself, and appoint for the enjoyment of your own right mind only that time which you cannot devote to any business?
How late it is to begin life just when we have to be leaving it! What a foolish forgetfulness of our mortality, to put off wholesome counsels until our fiftieth or sixtieth year, and to choose that our lives shall begin at a point which few of us ever reach.
This essay isn’t about working harder. It’s about asking yourself — what am I spending my time on? And is that what I really want to be spending it on?
Where can I read it?
Since this essay is in the public domain, you can probably find it in any number of compilations of Seneca’s work. (I found a version online and printed the 17 pages at home.)
But — announcement time! — I’ve actually made it really easy for you to get the gist of it. This is something new I’ve been working on. Allow me to introduce:
The Tim DeMoss Pocket Library!
I’ve taken “Of the Shortness of Life” (and a bunch of other awesome old writing!) and cut-and-pasted my favorite parts into these one-page print-and-fold pocket zines.
They’re not SparkNotes or summaries — just my favorite chunks of the author’s text in all their glory. (And if you end up loving it, you can go find the rest of the book.)
I’ve been making these and giving them to friends for a long time, and I’m really excited to finally share them with you — great reading material in a cheap, eco-friendly, totally analog (and totally vibey!) format.
I’m launching the Pocket Library with two five-zine collections. They’re themed around one subject each — Life is Short! and Slow Down! — so you can print them at home and spend a quiet evening in contemplation of a single topic.
If you’d like to explore the Pocket Library, you can visit my Ko-Fi here. I hope it’s helpful to you!
Update: I figured out how to make these available on a pay-what-you-want basis, instead of a fixed price. I had to move to a new platform to do it, but it worked! So if you’re a student or anyone who’s trying to not spend money right now, you can get them for like a penny! (Or of course, if you’ve got the patience, you could just look them up yourself online & read the originals.) Happy reading!
Have a really wonderful day!
-Tim