The Part of Life We Really Live

On July 31, 2016, Northman Trader, whom I follow on Twitter, wrote: One of my favorite historical writers is Seneca the Younger. He, like all of us, was a flawed human being but I appreciate his wisdom, realism and philosophical musings. Born in Spain he became a personal tutor and advisor to Emperor Nero and had a front row seat to power in Rome during some of its glory days and time of madness. In the “Shortness of Life” he, a man in his own time, wrote among other things:

“The part of life we really live is small….Consider how much of your time was taken up with a moneylender, how much with a mistress, how much with a patron, how much with a client, how much in wrangling with your wife, how much in punishing your slaves, how much in rushing about the city on social duties. Add the diseases which we have caused by our own acts, add, too, the time that has lain idle and unused; you will see that you have fewer years to your credit than you count. You will hear many men saying: “After my fiftieth year I shall retire into leisure, my sixtieth year shall release me from public duties.” And what guarantee, pray, have you that your life will last longer? Who will suffer your course to be just as you plan it? Are you not ashamed to reserve for yourself only the remnant of life, and to set apart for wisdom only that time which cannot be devoted to any business? How late it is to begin to live just when we must cease to live! What foolish forgetfulness of mortality to postpone wholesome plans to the fiftieth and sixtieth year, and to intend to begin life at a point to which few have attained!”

Excerpted from the following Tweet: https://twitter.com/northmantrader/status/759700492691787776  

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