DO not you know that both sickness and death
must overtake us? At what employment?
The husbandman at his plough; the sailor on
his voyage. At what employment would you
be taken? For, indeed, at what employment
ought you to be taken? If there is any better
employment at which you can be taken, follow
that. For my own part, I would be taken engaged
in nothing, but in the care of my own
faculty of choice ; how to render it undisturbed,
unrestrained, uncompelled, free. I would be
found studying this, that I may be able to say
to God,
"Have I transgressed Thy commands?
Have I perverted the powers, the senses, the
preconceptions which Thou hast given me?
Have I ever accused Thee, or censured Thy
dispensations?"
EPICTETUS. DISCOURSES. Book iii. §5. ¶1.
Don't you know that sickness and death will overtake each of us? Should we not then be employed at what concerns us now, rather than concerned about what will inevitably come to us? It is not length of a life that is the measure of it's fulfillement, but the use to which the time we have now is put. - Lessons from Epictetus
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