The Roman philosopher, poet, and statesman Seneca pose this question in his essay “On the Shortness of Life”: How can you achieve balance if you don’t even have time to live?
To drive home his point, Seneca uses the analogy of an archer who shoots three arrows at a target.
The first arrow is what we might call Seneca’s “idea moment.” It struck him as he walked through a grove one day and thought about how little time we all have to live our lives.
The second arrow represents Senecan Stoic logic: If you spend your time worrying about things that haven’t happened yet, you won’t have much time to enjoy the present.
And if you fill your days with unnecessary tasks and unimportant errands, you will run out of time before you know it. The trick is to strike the right balance between leisure and work, relaxation and responsibilities.
The third arrow takes these ideas one step further: Once you understand how little time there is in your life, how can you use that understanding to make every moment count?
In his famous essay on the brevity of life, Seneca reminds us that humans live much of our existence, oblivious to our mortality.
We don’t even fully come to terms with our finite nature until we face imminent death or as in Socrates’ case, an imminent execution.
We all know that life is short and fragile.
And yet, most of us spend our days caught up in the minutiae of life instead of doing something meaningful. It’s so easy to get caught up in the routine and forget to make time for what really matters: friends, family, hobbies… anything that brings out the best in us.
Many people waste most of their 1440 minutes a day on activities and experiences that bring out the worst in them.
The essence of life is about experiences — the things we see, taste, smell, touch and hear. It’s not just about how long we live but also the quality of our existence. “Since life is short and the world is wide, the sooner you start exploring it, the better, says Simon Raven.
We can either settle with less and be complacent in our comfort zones or step out of our cocoons and embrace everything life offers us.
In the grand scheme of things, we have a limited amount of time. What do you intend to do with your finite time left?
How are you spending the rest of your life? How will you be remembered? What impact do you want to make on those around you?
Others dedicate their entire lives to something they hate, like a job they can’t stand or an unfulfilling relationship that drains them instead of uplifting them.
Knowing the value of time and how much we have left, we should be working on things that excite and bring out the best in us.
The good news is, you have control over how we spend it.
To make the most of life, it’s important to find things that excite you and drive you forward. Meaningful activities are those that align with your values and passions. When immersed in these activities, you’ll feel a strong sense of joy and satisfaction from exploring your passions further.
“Carpe diem”: seize the day
“Life is long if you know how to use it.” — Seneca
It’s up to you to make it interesting, fulfilling and meaningful. There are so many things we want to do, places we want to go, and people we want to meet.
Sometimes the fear of not knowing when or if you can do something again — or even simple things like making new friends — prevents us from living life fully right now.
If you have any of these fears, know that you’re not alone, and millions of people feel the same way. But guess what? You don’t need to wait for another perfect moment to live your life — it could be as simple as saying “yes” more often or taking that new experience you’ve been planning for months.
“But putting things off is the biggest waste of life: it snatches away each day as it comes, and denies us the present by promising the future. The greatest obstacle to living is expectancy, which hangs upon tomorrow and loses today,” says Seneca in the book, On the Shortness of Life.
Life is so short, and we can all make time for things that matter to us. We have to bravely step out of our comfort zones and live, even though we might fail at something new and unproven.
Time is the most precious thing we have, as Aristotle rightly noted. However, it is also the one thing that we can never get back once it has passed.
Don’t wait for tomorrow to start living. Don’t waste another moment on your fears and insecurities. Life is short, and you only get one shot at it, so seize your time. Remember what Soren Kierkegaard once said, “Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.”
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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.
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