Seneca - The Futility of Planning Ahead

The Dance of Life by Edvard Munch (1900)

Sundays with Seneca

Welcome to Sundays with Seneca on the Perennial Meditations podcast. Join the search for ancient lessons on the art of living from Lucius Annaeus Seneca's writings and Stoic philosophy.

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The Futility of Planning Ahead

In a letter known today as On the Futility of Planning Ahead, Seneca wrote,

Every day and every hour reveal to us what a nothing we are, and remind us with some fresh evidence that we have forgotten our weakness; then, as we plan for eternity, they compel us to look over our shoulders at Death.

Do you ask me what this preamble means? It refers Cornelius, a distinguished and capable Roman knight, whom you knew: from humble beginnings, he had advanced himself to fortune, and the rest of the path already lay downhill before him. For it is easier to grow in dignity than to make a start; and money is very slow to come where there is poverty; until it can creep out of that, it goes halting. He was already bordering upon wealth, helped in that direction by two very powerful assets—knowing how to make money and how to keep it also; either one of these gifts might have made him a rich man.

Here was a person who lived most simply, careful of health and wealth alike. He had, as usual, called upon me early in the morning, and had then spent the whole day, even up to nightfall, at the bedside of a friend who was seriously and hopelessly ill. After a comfortable dinner, he was suddenly seized with an acute attack of quinsy, and, with the breath clogged tightly in his swollen throat, barely lived until daybreak. So within a very few hours after the time when he had been performing all the duties of a sound and healthy man, he passed away.

He who was venturing investments by land and sea, who had also entered public life and left no type of business untried, during the very realization of financial success and during the very onrush of the money that flowed into his coffers, was snatched from the world!