THE majority of mortals, Paulinus, complain bitterly of the spitefulness of Nature, because we are born for a brief span of life, because even this space that has been granted to us rushes by so speedily and so swiftly that all save a very few find life at an end just when they are getting ready to live... It is not that we have a short space of time, but that we waste much of it. Life is long enough, and it has been given in sufficiently generous measure to allow the accomplishment of the very greatest things if the whole of it is well invested. But when it is squandered in luxury and carelessness, when it is devoted to no good end, forced at last by the ultimate necessity we perceive that it has passed away before we were aware that it was passing. So it is - the life we receive is not short, but we make it so, nor do we have any lack of it, but are wasteful of it.
SENECA. ON THE SHORTNESS OF LIFE. Book I. 1, 3, 4.
It is not that life is short, it is just that we waste so much of it. Life is long enough to allow for the accomplishment of the very greatest things if we choose to live intentionally. But we waste it in luxury and frivolous pursuits, refusing to give meaning and purpose to our actions. We are forced at last by the ultimate reality of our mortality to notice that our life has passed away before we were even aware that it was passing. So this is it - the life we receive is not short, but we make it so ouselves, nor do we have any lack of it, but are wasteful of it. - Seneca
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