Seneca, Moral Letters 1.2

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. 

 

Nothing, Lucilius, is ours, except time. We were entrusted by nature with the ownership of this single thing, so fleeting and slippery that anyone who will can oust us from possession. 

 

What fools these mortals be! They allow the cheapest and most useless things, which can easily be replaced, to be charged in the reckoning, after they have acquired them; but they never regard themselves as in debt when they have received some of that precious commodity—time! And yet time is the one loan which even a grateful recipient cannot repay. 

 

The Stoic attitude of living well through what is within our power expresses itself wonderfully when it comes to managing time. How should I make use of what I have, and how much of it is actually mine? Be fully human at every moment, because only that very moment is in any way assured. 

 

What is past no longer exists for me. I may recall the impression of it in my memory, but in and of itself it is no more. It can no longer be lived, and so it will do me no good to dwell upon it. 

 

What is future does not yet exist for me. I may consider it in my expectation, but in and of itself it is only a possibility. Here I face an immediate reality before me, and I hide away in the prospect of what might be. 

 

Only what is now exists for me. It may not be what I prefer, and there is no guarantee on its duration, but it never fails to offer me an opportunity to act with dignity and character. There has never been a moment where I cannot choose to be just and compassionate. 

 

I can’t help but feel rather ashamed at how great a value I give to trivialities, to false imaginings, to things that bring no benefit to my soul. 

 

Here I might think that I can pay a price for my happiness, and yet my time, the one thing that is truly mine to make of as I choose, is a gift of Nature, completely incapable of being bought and sold. 

 

Let me consider all the things I try desperately to save, and then compare them to all the things I treat so wastefully. I will find that I have my wires crossed. I fuss over accumulating money that I hope to spend later, a fine reputation for things completed long ago, and the promise of favors to cover for future contingencies.

 

Through it all, that one thing I should be holding on to for dear life, the most priceless commodity I possess, slips away for me. I am far too often forgetting to live in the now, with purity and simplicity.

Written in 5/2000