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December    26th

LIFE    IS  LONG—IF YOU KNOW    HOW TO  USE IT

“It’s   not at  all that    we  have    too short   a   time    to  live,   but that    we  squander    a   great   deal    of  it. Life    is

long    enough, and it’s    given   in  sufficient  measure to  do  many    great   things  if  we  spend   it  well.   But

when    it’s    poured  down    the drain   of  luxury  and neglect,    when    it’s    employed    to  no  good    end,

we’re   finally driven  to  see that    it  has passed  by  before  we  even    recognized  it  passing.    And so  it

is—we   don’t   receive a   short   life,   we  make    it  so.”

—SENECA,    ON  THE BREVITY OF  LIFE,   1.3–4a

o one knows how long they have to live, but sadly, we can be sure of one thing: we’ll waste far too
much of life. Waste it sitting around, waste it chasing the wrong things, waste it by refusing to take
the time to ask ourselves what’s actually important to us. Far too often, we’re like the overconfident
academics that Petrarch criticized in his classic essay on ignorance—the types who “fritter away their
powers incessantly in caring for things outside of them and seek themselves there.” Yet they have no idea
this is what they’re doing.
So today, if you find yourself rushed or uttering the words “I just don’t have enough time,” stop and
take a second. Is this actually true? Or have you just committed to a lot of unnecessary things? Are you
actually being efficient, or have you assumed a great deal of waste into your life? The average American
spends something like forty hours a year in traffic. That’s months over the course of a life. And for
“traffic,” you can substitute so many activities—from fighting with others to watching television to
daydreaming.
Your life is plenty long—just use it properly.