Reading & the Good Life
Join the conversation! Every Friday at Noon EST, Perennial Meditations readers are welcome to gather for Reading & the Good Life (Join here), a space for connection, contemplation, and conversations on the art of living! This week continues our exploration of the writing and wisdom of Lucius Annaeus Seneca through David Fideler’s (a previous podcast guest) great book Breakfast with Seneca: A Stoic Guide to the Art of Living.
Who is Lucius Annaeus Seneca?
As many of you know, every Sunday, we explore one of Lucius Annaeus Seneca's (4 BC to 65 AD) letters. Seneca was a Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, and advisor to Emporer Nero. He is most known for his philosophical works, including a dozen essays and one hundred twenty-four letters. Seneca's letters are mainly to Lucilius and cover several timeless topics, from wisdom to death and everything in between. His letters, known today as Letters from a Stoic, are filled with timeless wisdom.
Don’t Postpone Living
Seneca urges us to remember that time is our most valuable resource. He asked Lucilius: “What man can you show me who places any value on his time, who reckons the worth of each day, who understands that he is dying daily?”
Seneca stressed,
We are mistaken when we look forward to death; the major portion of death has already passed. Whatever years behind us are in death’s hands. Therefore, Lucilius, do as you write me that you are doing: hold every hour in your grasp. Lay hold of today’s task, and you will not need to depend so much upon tomorrow’s. While we are postponing, life speeds by.
For Seneca, we lose much of our time and life through carelessness. When we fail to pay attention, life has a way of slipping away.
In what is probably Seneca’s most well-known work, On the Shortness of Life, Seneca writes,
Death is on my trail, and life is fleeting away; teach me something with which to face these troubles. Bring it to pass that I shall cease trying to escape from death, and that life may cease to escape from me. Give me courage to meet hardships; make me calm in the face of the unavoidable. Relax the straitened limits of the time which is allotted me. Show me that the good in life does not depend upon life’s length, but upon the use we make of it; […]
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