Seneca, Moral Letters 49.3

For this reason, I am all the more angry that some men claim the major portion of this time for superfluous things—time which, no matter how carefully it is guarded, cannot suffice even for necessary things. 
 

Cicero declared that if the number of his days were doubled, he should not have time to read the lyric poets. And you may rate the dialecticians in the same class; but they are foolish in a more melancholy way. The lyric poets are avowedly frivolous; but the dialecticians believe that they are themselves engaged upon serious business.
 
I do not deny that one must cast a glance at dialectic; but it ought to be a mere glance, a sort of greeting from the threshold, merely that one may not be deceived, or judge these pursuits to contain any hidden matters of great worth. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 49 

 
My teachers told me that daydreaming was a waste of time, and my boss insists that reading a book can’t possibly be considered doing work. I suppose I should count myself lucky, because I have never been timed on my bathroom breaks, as is the norm at the plastics factory outside of town. 
 
We may know that we only have so much time to get things done, and yet the real problem is in discerning what is truly worth getting done. Is it pushing paper, counting coins, or assembling widgets? Or could it be, as the Stoic maintains, that the most important part of life is learning to practice wisdom, courage, moderation, and justice? 
 
Necessary things are those we can’t do without; with superfluous things, we can take them or leave them. The contrast can never become clear without examining our first principles about human nature. Philosophy might not be such a waste of time at all. 
 
What use is making the money if I don’t understand how to spend it? Why dabble in the luxuries if I permit myself to be enslaved by them? And as much as the scholar likes his books, how can the fancy learning improve him if he merely uses them to show off? 
 
I should feel free to read all the stirring poetry I prefer, or study all the clever rhetoric I can manage, while not forgetting why the poetry and the rhetoric aren’t to be admired for their own sake. I will have taken what I need from both, once I have discovered something helpful from them about becoming a more gracious soul. 
 
When we dedicate every waking hour to accumulating wealth, grabbing for pleasures, or winning fame, we’re all a bit confused about our priorities, and so we spend far too much time on the dispensable, and far too little time on the essential. 
 
A man isn’t measured by how many hours he spends at the office, which is why most every one of them ends up regretting that irredeemable miscalculation on his deathbed. 

—Reflection written in 3/2013