Who has never run out of time?
Who has never complained about the rapidity of the days?
"It's going too fast!",
we sometimes exclaim, worn out by weeks transformed into a tunnel.
What does Seneca answer us?
It is false, life is not short, it is we who waste it.
This is the thesis of his brilliant
De la brevité de la vie
published in 1,000 nights.
According to the philosopher, we spend most of our lives getting lost in ambition, covetousness, voluntary servitude, laziness, silly and futile joys… All this while waiting for our retirement.
But, asks Seneca, who tells us that we will live as long as we want?
So our biggest obstacle is “expectation”
.
Concretely?
We
"regret the time spent, we complain about the present, we despair of the future".
So, Seneca advises us, we must live in the immediate future.
Carpe Diem.
You have to take time for yourself.
Learning to know each other.
What do I really want, me, and for me alone?
You have to live “idle”, in the Latin sense of the term.
Achieve wisdom, tranquility of the soul.
By what means?
Meditation, philosophy, contemplation.
In truth, life is not "time", but "feeling".
Let's learn to look at the past without fear, to make the best use of the present and to anticipate the future.
Here, according to Seneca, is the secret of happiness.
On the brevity of life, De Sénèque, 1,001 nights,
62 p., €3.