Book 312 - A Year of Magical Learning

Reflection Title: Stop Wasting Time!

Book – On the Shortness of Life by Seneca

Book Description:

On the Shortness of Life is a moral essay written by Seneca the Younger, a Roman Stoic philosopher, sometime around the year 49 AD, to his father-in-law Paulinus. The philosopher brings up many Stoic principles on the nature of time, namely that people waste much of it in meaningless pursuits. According to the essay, nature gives people enough time to do what is really important and the individual must allot it properly. In general, time is best used by living in the present moment in pursuit of the intentional, purposeful life.

Reflection:

Over the course of this journey, I’ve consumed many books that are first party accounts from brave souls that detail their personal suffering through extreme events. I think of books like When Breath Becomes Air, Hiroshima, A Long Walk to Freedom, The Gulag Archipelago, A Man’s Search for Meaning, Never Quit, A Year of Magical Thinking, Unbroken, The Diary of Anne Frank, Tuesday’s With Morrie, and the list goes on and on. While the events shared and circumstances of each story are all a little different, the message I keep hearing is the same.

That message is…DON’T WASTE YOUR TIME!

Spend each day like it is your last while striving to do the things you love with the people you love the most!

Is it really that simple? Is this idealistic perfect day, every day, possible?

I think it is!

Emilia showed me that it is possible, and I’ve been doing my best to follow her tracks to do the same for myself every day since she passed away.

It may always not be 100% perfect. In fact, it never is and probably never will be. I will probably never experience that one magical 24-hour period of perfection where every moment is meaningful, and purpose driven. However, if I can get 50%, 75%, or even 99% of the way there in any given day then I know that day will have been ONE DAMN FINE DAY!

As I’m writing this, I’m reminded of an aphorism that Nassim Taleb shared in his short book of aphorisms called The Bed of Procrustes. “For so many, instead of looking for cause of death when they expire, we should be looking for cause of life when they are still around.”

I know for a fact that no one will be asking for a cause of life for me if they come across my path. No words give me more pride to type than these because it means that I’m honoring my promise I made to Emilia?

Question: What is your cause of life?

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Links:

What is The Year of Magical Learning? An Introduction

YOML Podcast Discussion - Coming Soon

YOML Bookstore - On the Shortness of Life by Seneca