#35 Seneca: On the Shortness of Life

So I recently read a book called On the Shortness of Life by Seneca. It's a really short book, about 82 pages. And I wanted to make a shorter episode on this book because I thought it was one of the best short books I've ever read in my life because of the fact that he reminds us of our own mortality. And it's better than any of the books about time in the sense that it gives you a philosopher's approach to how to spend your time. Not wasting your time, what it means to actually live fully. And I think it's a really, really good quote. We actually have a quote in our film, the Boundless documentary, Boundless: The Man Who Became Human. In that film, we have a quote from Marcus Aurelius. It says, it is not death that a man should fear, but never beginning to live. And I think that Seneca really embodies that quote within his short book On the Shortness of Life. I don't know if this was an essay or whatever. Whatever it was, but it is an incredible book. You can get it on Kindle for free if you have Kindle Unlimited. But I wanna just go through, I have about 24 highlights and I wanna read through these quotes because I think it is one of the best books you can read about time. So I wanna just get into it. It is not that we have a short space of time, but that we waste much of it. Let me read that again. It is not that we have a short space of time, but that we waste much of it. I love that he says this because when you think about it, Seneca was back in the very early history of the world. He was within a couple hundred years of, I think, the beginning AD century. And when you really think about that, Seneca is saying not like it's not that we have, you know, a long time. We actually, or even a short space of time, it's that we waste most of the time that we have. And he's saying this even before there was anything such as social media, right? We have social media nowadays and we have the internet and you can go on the internet, look up anything you want, and you can become the most knowledgeable you can in any field that you want to nowadays. But there's also, it's a double-edged sword. The double edge is that you can also become the most distracted you've ever been in history. So I like what he says here: it is not that we have a short space of time, but that we waste much of it. The next quote: Life is long enough, and it has been given in sufficiently generous quantities to allow the accomplishment of the very greatest things if the whole of it is well invested. So he says He's kind of playing off the short space of time. He's saying that life is long enough to do everything that we need to do. What's really interesting is that Seneca is saying, with the life that you have, you have enough time if you use it wisely. We waste a ton of time. It's not that we have a short space of time, it's that we waste much of it. So if we don't waste time, because there's this great quote, time is your most valuable asset. Money can't buy time. Like, in a sense it can, but your time is so valuable that you don't want to just rent it out for free. You want to be— you want to have your time a premium because you're not going to have a lot of it. You don't have a lot of it already. It's the only thing that's depleting. You don't know how many days you have left on the earth. That's why I love this book, is because you start thinking about that in that way. He says, in guarding their fortune, people are often tight-fisted. Yet when it comes to the matter of wasting time, which is the one thing they should have the right to be miserly over, they show themselves most uncontrolled. He's saying the exact same thing I just said. He's saying they're more controlled with their money than they are about their time. They're willing to go do whatever and not control their time when that is the most limited resource. The next quote: You have now reached the furthest part of your life, approaching your hundredth year, or perhaps even beyond it. Recall your life and estimate how much of your time was taken up working for another, how much repaying debts, how much with clients for a business which does not serve you, how much in arguing with your wife, how much rushing about the city socializing but gaining nothing from it. So what he's saying is you have all these things, you, you could count up all these things that have taken up your time And I think the biggest thing for me, what I took away from this, how much of your time was taken up working for another person? For people that start businesses, they work for themselves. You know, socializing but gaining nothing from it. I have a friend called Jack Wagner. He has this podcast called The Grateful Podcast. And I saw one of his clips on social media and it said something to that effect, like, you can be busy and not productive. Like, that is a thing. You can be so busy that you're not productive. I've seen that in some places that I've worked. I've seen that like you can be so busy doing all these things, socializing with all these people, acting like you're doing a lot of things when really in reality you're not doing anything at all. You're not being productive. Maybe you're getting a couple of things done here and there, but it's not moving the needle. It's not actually doing real things. The next quote, you squander time as if you had a full and abundant supply. The one day which you waste on some person or thing could be your last. But he's saying you don't know when your time is going to end. When you really realize and internalize that today might be your last day, tomorrow might be your last day, and you're introspective about what could happen. And I'm not saying wallow in it, because what you don't want to do is you don't want to get stuck in the, you know, thinking about the past so much or even the future. That you don't live in the present. You need to be in the moment. So you need to take this, internalize it, and say, all right, this could be my last, so I'm going to live fully. You will hear many say, after my 50th year, I will retire into leisure. My 60th year, I will no longer have any public duties. And what guarantee do you have that your life will last longer than this? And who else but yourself will suffer this course, waiting until a fixed time to actually live? Dude, this guy is incredible. This is a great quote. This explains everything. This explains everything. People have this preconception that if they just get money in a 401, or if they just get money for their retirement when they're 60— I think it's like 59 and a half— but if they— this is, this is crazy. I love this quote so much. People think that they could just get enough money for when they're 60 or 60 years old, have everything ready by then, and then live their life. But it's like, that is so foolish when you think about it. Live your life now in your prime. Get, you know, start the business, do the risky thing now. Because if you do it now, then you actually live your whole life. Why would you live Your life at the end of your life, like retirement. The the whole idea of retirement, I would say, is a scam. Retirement is a scam. You look at Donald Trump; he is still working in his eighties, and he still has fun though. He still has fun. He's golfing. You know, his his fun is probably a little bit harder than other people, but some people just have this dream that they're going to be sixty years old. They're going to retire on some. Hawaiian beach or some beach out in the middle of nowhere and have no one bother them. But the thing is, as humans, we were made to work. You know, retirement— like, yes, take breaks. Take that month-long trip break that restores you and rests your soul and spirit. Do— but do things that are fun to you, right? Do things that make you live your life now. Push yourself now, so that way you can live for the like all of your life and not just a little part of it. I really want to read this again. You will hear many say after my 50th year I will retire in a leisure. My 60th year I will no longer have any public duties. He's saying I will retire after my after I turn 50. After 60 I will have no more responsibilities. And what guarantee do you have? That your life will last longer than this. How do you know you're going to reach that point? You know, are you that wise to think you're going to live that long? Now granted, this was Seneca and most people live, you know, probably 60s. I don't know what the average lifespan in America or just the world is, but again, just listen to this. And what guarantee do you have that your life will last longer than this? And who else but yourself will suffer this course? You're going to suffer during this time. Waiting until a fixed time— you're fixing— you're waiting for a specific moment to actually live. That's what he's saying. I think it's insane to think about. And he goes on. What foolish forgetfulness of mortality to postpone plans to the 50th and 60th year and to intend to begin life at a point too To which few have attained in good health. You know, most people when they're 50 or 60, when they think they're going to be doing, you know, they're going to have the best years of their life, they're actually super sick. You know, they might not survive that long. You know, and granted, this is Seneca, so people probably didn't live that long. But when you really think about it, people nowadays, you know, you get into your 50s or 60s, they're not living that well either. If I were to guess on the average lifespan, it'd probably be in the 70s. So he's not that far off. To say I'm going to retire by 60, that's a foolish way of thinking. How do you know how long you're going to live? He goes on. He who always possesses an undiminished and stable liberty, being free and his own master, towers over all others. What this shows me is entrepreneurship. I look at people that start businesses, people that do things outside of the box. People, because when I think of free freedom, I think of like you own equity in a company. Naval Ravikant, I was reading, rereading some highlights and just going back in previous episodes and just listening to previous episodes. And he really talked about like you want passive income, income that is making you money while you sleep. What you don't want is you don't want to work for other people all of your life and then just retire. What you do want is you want the freedom to take a break whenever you want. I'm not saying, I'm not saying entrepreneurship is easy, but it's definitely, you know, you definitely have freedom that way. It's hard, but that hard-earned freedom, it is hard-earned, right? The next quote: For you do not seize it, you neither hold it back nor impose delay upon the swiftest thing in In the world, but you allow it to let it slip away as if it were something unnecessary and that it could be easily replaced. He's talking about time. You do not seize it. You don't hold it back. You don't impose delay upon the swiftest thing in the world. You allow it to slip away as if it were something unnecessary and even like something that could be replaced. Just think about that. People think they can replace their time. They can't. They think it's unnecessary. I would rather have money than I'd have time. That's what people think. But actually it's the inverse. I'd rather have more time, you know, than money. Because if you're making a good— you have a good paycheck or not even paycheck, you just have— you're making good money doing what you love to do. That is something, and you're spending time with the people you love to spend time with. That is what makes life worth it. But most people waste their time doing like working for people that in doing jobs they don't love to do. Everyone hurries their life on and suffers from a yearning for the future and a weariness of the present. Think about this: live in the present. Another way to say this: live in the present. Everyone is so focused on if I could only have that in the future, if I could only, you know, do that one thing or get that one house or have that certain car, certain things in the future, you start not living in the present. It's the same thing if you focus too much on the past. And this is a big thing for people that have had a beloved, a beloved one die, right? You think so much about them that you start not living in The present, and Seneca is pointing at this. People yearn for the future, but they don't live in the present. They don't live like, and that's a big thing with social media too, right? I know it's like when people go on their phones and you're like talking to them, and then they look down on your phone, even though they might still be listening to you, you kind of know that they're kind of detached. And it's like even Seneca is saying this back. In his time, and now we have social media and phones, which are way more distracting. And so, you know, people long for the future; they long for what other people have; they long for the past, you know. And then they forget to live in the present. That's the same thing, like with social media taking out, you know, your time because you're seeing everyone else, but then you're not realizing what you have right now. He goes on: He who bestows all of his time. On his own needs, who plans out every day as if it were his last, neither longs for nor fears tomorrow. He's basically giving an antidote to the previous quote, where it's like if you don't want to long for the future or like yearn for the future, then what you should do is you should start living every day like it's your last. Next quote: Men treat with little respect the most precious thing in the world. But they are blind to it because it is not physical, because it does not come to the sight of the eyes. And for this reason, it is counted as a very cheap thing or of almost no value at all. Isn't that really interesting? Like, what are you saying in this quote? It's like the most precious thing in the whole entire world is your time. But because you can't see it, because it's not like blocks sitting in front of your house that are just constantly disappearing, like, oh, another hour gone, and it's just like a block of time just like disappearing from your house, right? Because it's not physical and you can't see it doesn't mean that it's not valuable. He says men save towards great pensions. It's crazy that they had pensions in this time. They must have translated this. I don't know how they did it. Men save towards great pensions, and for these they hire out their labor, service, and effort. But no one sets a value on time. All use it lavishly as if it costs nothing. Again with the time. And I don't want to be a broken record with the time, but that's kind of the whole episode. But then he's going into specific details like men save towards these 401s or these pensions or stocks or certain things that it's like retirement funds. But then they're hiring out their labor, their service, their effort, but they're, they're doing it at the cost of time. They're not valuing their time, and essentially their time costs nothing. He goes on, yet no one will give you these years back. It's a great quote. No one, no one's going to give you your years back. When you waste time, it's wasted. That, that goes right down to the core, man. That's insane. All right, he keeps going. They keep themselves very busily engaged in order that they may be able to live better. They spend life in making it ready to live. They form their purposes with a view to the distant future. Yet postponement is the greatest waste of life. It deprives them of every day as it comes. It snatches from them the The present by promising something hereafter. People can postpone; they can say they'll do it. They can say they'll like they'll get to it down the road when really it's depriving them each day, and it's a great waste of life. He goes on: The greatest hindrance to living is expectancy, which depends upon tomorrow and wastes the present. Again, with the wasting, you're wasting the present when you think about. The future, when you long for the future, when you— and I'm not saying that you shouldn't have a dream or an ambition or think about what you want to become. Arnold Schwarzenegger did that. You know, Chris Nolan did that. All these greats and founders have done that, right? They have all done that. They have looked at where they want to be. Michael Jordan, dude, studying Magic and Bird, right? He looked at where he was supposed to be. And what he did is, you know, he didn't just dream about it. He didn't waste time thinking about it. He actually did it. That's the, that's the thing that Seneca is saying. It's like he's making all these points, which is great, but I would add to it. It's like, you know, when you see something and you dream about it, actually go do it. That's the difference between someone that gets sucked up in what Seneca is saying, like looking for the future, looking for tomorrow, and then all of a sudden You waste all those years of your life. Dude, I'm getting fired up just talking about this because it's— this is a lot of fun. But dude, it's like, it's right there. It's right there. And I love how it's like you expect something. I love how he says that the greatest hindrance to living is expectancy. Like, you're expecting to live to 50, but no one knows. You don't know. No one knows. So why should we expect that? Why shouldn't we live like every day is our last? You know why? Or not even that, you know, I don't necessarily believe that, but why don't you live? You know, the whole goal is to live more fully in the life that you have. And there's practical things like not wasting time on social media, you know, living in the present, like certain little things you can do now that Seneca is talking about. Life is divided into 3 periods: that which has been, that which is, that which will be. Of these, the present time is short. The future is doubtful. The past is certain. He goes on: Present time is very brief, so brief indeed that to some there seems to be none. That's that's the whole idea of like living in the present, right? If you don't, it's just going to go by really quick. For it always is in motion. It ever flows and hurries on. It ceases to be. Before it has come. Another quote: They are not content to be good guardians of their own lifetime only. They take from every age to add to their own. What I take this quote to mean is like reading. You know, when you read— C.S. Lewis has this like, um, beautiful idea of when you read, you're seeing through 10,000 people's eyes, right? You're reading through the author who is talking about probably historical sources. So you're reading whoever those people who wrote those are. So there's a lot more— like, you can expand your lifetime by actually— like, you can add to your lifetime by reading. He says, and this is even just to further prove his point, unless we are most ungrateful, all those men, glorious tailors of holy thoughts, were born for us. For us they have prepared a way of life. He's, he's saying just what I just said. It's like, are we ungrateful to not read about the past, to learn about the past, to learn about history? All those men who basically have come before us and like told us how to live, like, here's how to live, these are all the mistakes I've ever made, here's where I wish I could Like done better. Like I think of J.D. Rockefeller or James Dyson or all these other entrepreneurs. Steve Jobs. I just found out today that Steve Jobs wrote—he helped Walter Isaacson write his biography because he knew he was dying, and so he wanted to get all the information in there. And what I found most fascinating is like all these people when they get to their very end. Of their lives, if they pour themselves into a book or they have like someone writes a book about them, they are so— they're older, but they're saying all the mistakes they've ever made, all the successes they've had, especially if they're founders of companies and successful, or no matter what they've done, they have a blueprint in a sense and they're just handing it to you. The only thing is that they're in books. Or other sources and learning. And if you don't choose to like take, you know, it's like if they're offering an extended hand to you and you don't take it and you reject it and you say, no, I don't, I don't want that. It's like at the end of the day, you're not going to grow. You're not going to learn. You're not going to be curious. You're not going to, to learn about, even if it's like James Dyson, the founder of the Dyson vacuum, which is almost like in a ton of houses. It's a privately owned company, 100%, like 100% privately owned by James Dyson himself. He started it like 50 years ago. I don't know when. I think it was 50 years ago because he's 70. He started when he was like 20. He had 14 years of endless struggle. Like, that guy's story is incredible. He loves history and invention so much that he wrote a book about inventions, The Greatest Inventions of Mankind. You can actually buy it. I think it's like $35 on Amazon. Like, it's crazy. But what I notice is that these successful people in life, or even not even successful, but like wisest people in life, they want to learn. They're endlessly curious about the world around them, whether it's a vacuum, whether it's, you know, the best chair in the world. Like, I don't care what it is, as long as you are curious About like J.D. Rockefeller. He, you know, he did oil. Henry Ford. Henry Ford, dude. Like, he— I didn't realize the scope of his impact until I listened to David Sinra's podcast episode, and he's done multiple. Um, I think he was in the 200s, maybe 260-something. What's really interesting is that Henry Ford, if we didn't have cars, we wouldn't really have roads or highways or roads connecting cities, like we wouldn't have a big infrastructure for almost the whole world. But the whole world uses cars. We'd still have horses. Like if Henry Ford didn't do that, and someone would probably come up with it at some point. But even like the Wright brothers, you look at the Wright brothers and they invented the airplane. We wouldn't have travel between like major cities without that. Like, there's so many things to be grateful for, and this is what he's saying. We need to be grateful. We need to see the people that have made mistakes in their life, that have done amazing things, that have done things that had changed our world, and we need to learn from them. And even the people now, like, changing our world now, like, in real time, right? Those are the people that matter, right? And we need to be learning from them. Now, uh, we, we go on. He goes on: By other men's labors we are led to the sight of things most beautiful that have been wrestled from darkness and brought into light. From no age are we shut out. We have access to all ages. And if it is our wish, by greatness of mind, to pass beyond the narrow limits of human weakness, there is such There is a great stretch of time through which we may rumble. He's talking about reading, learning, just what I was talking about for like the last five minutes. And again, I just want to reiterate some of the things that he's saying. We have access to all ages, and if it is our wish by greatness of mind to pass beyond the narrow limits of our human weakness, what is our human weakness? Our human weakness. Is being confined, thinking that you have all the experience just because of the life you lived, when really there are hundreds, thousands of people that have come— hundreds of thousands of people that have come before you with a ton of knowledge. And to say, oh, I don't want to learn about that, or I don't want to read that, is denying what we've been given. You know, you wouldn't have what you had today if it weren't for these people. So why wouldn't we learn about them? Why wouldn't we, you know, and if you find an idea that they used in the past to make it successful, because history kind of repeats itself, or at least human nature does. If you find something that was a really good idea back then, Steve Jobs did the same thing with Edwin Land. Edwin Land started the company Polaroid and Steve Jobs took that idea from like the '60s. He met Edwin Land, probably maybe in the '70s. I think it was '60s or '70s. And he met Edwin Land. He took the idea for Polaroid, and Polaroid had kind of gone downhill. He took that same idea and he kind of revamped it or took the same framework and used it for Apple. And now we use Apple iPhones. So to say that we can't go back in history, find a really good idea, and dude, you can make that super You can make what you have now super successful. It just takes learning and studying and really growing in that to find that idea, even if it's just one idea. Charlie Munger has this great quote, and this is just off the top of my head. He says, it's like there could be an idea worth billions of dollars in a $30 history book. Think about that. In a $30 history book, there could be worth billions of dollars if you just got That one idea and that one time, and you use that and you go and use that in your business or in your life, or even— it's not even billions of dollars. It could impact your children. Like, I found David Sinner's podcast in 2024, and ever since that moment, that has changed the complete trajectory of my life. What I'm not saying is like David Sinra is everything. What I'm saying is like, because that guy did what he did and he did it for years, and I found his podcast in 2024— I remember the first podcast episode. I've listened to over 200 podcast episodes. I think it's like over 250 now, or at least 240. I know it's like 270 hours, but still, like, I've listened to so much. I've learned about Disney. Coco Chanel, Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett, Giro Uno, Enzo Ferrari, Henry Ford, Steve Jobs. I can name all like probably 50 to 100 people. And just because that guy did his podcast and I learned about these people in history, now I can take any of those ideas and I can apply it to You know, films. Like if I, if I do another film, it's like taking the creative act from Rick Rubin and figuring that out. The central thesis of just reading and learning and endlessly growing—that is the key. That's a super big key, and that's something I'm super grateful for. And what I'm really, what I'm trying to say is that. Our minds are so narrow, and if we don't focus in the moment and being present, it kind of sounds paradoxical when you think about it to learn about the past when Seneca is saying you need to be in the present. But what he what he isn't saying is you need to be swallowed up in the past. What I think applies to us. Is that you can go back in the past and learn from that and take it, take those ideas for the present. And even right now, you can take present ideas for the present. Like, there are people in industries right now that are dominating, but they don't get as much exposure because they don't have a book or they don't have certain things. And it just takes one idea, like one podcast David Sinra's Founders Podcast. Like, one podcast, one idea, one thing to change your life. And that's what's super powerful. Steve Jobs has this great quote. I actually wrote it when I was back in school on my binder. Why are we here if we aren't here to put a dent in the universe? Like, what he's saying is like, we are supposed to change the world. We are supposed to do things that, you know, not everyone's built like that, but like, you Even if you just affect, you're affecting, or you're changing someone's life around you, even if that's one person, that's still better than worrying about yourself, right? Live in the present, learn from the past, and don't fear about the future, right? Live in the present. This is a great book. This is a great book from Seneca. On the Shortness of Life. I really recommend buying it or just getting Kindle Unlimited and using it. It costs nothing if you're on Kindle Unlimited. It's like 82 pages, so super short. I read this in probably 30 minutes to an hour, so super, super short book. These were kind of the top highlights that I read from it, and I really appreciate you taking the time to really listen to this. Because I think this is one of the best short books I've ever read. And I think that there's a lot of wisdom in this. And again, you're learning from Seneca, who probably learned from Socrates or whoever he was around at the time. So you're not only learning just his perspective, you're also learning a ton of other people's perspectives. And that's really the key when you think about it, right? He learned from other people. You're learning from him. You're taking those ideas and applying it to your life now. And when other people see that you're doing that, they're learning from you. It's a whole cycle, but it starts with being grateful for learning from history, from learning from people. The fact that you listen to this episode means that you're learning from history. So I really just thank you guys for listening to this episode. I I really love this book. I think it's a great book. I hope that I'll make an episode sometime on another one of his books. Hopefully it's this good. This was an incredible book, and I really appreciate you guys for taking the time to listen to this, and I will talk to you guys again soon.