Seneca, ~49 AD
On the Shortness of Life
Seneca wrote this essay to his friend Paulinus. Its argument has never been improved on:
It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste much of it. Life is long enough, and given in generous measure, for the accomplishment of the greatest things — if the whole of it is well invested.
But when Life is squandered through luxury and carelessness, when it is spent on no worthwhile pursuit, then at the final hour we realize that the Life we did not notice passing has passed away.
So it is: we are not given a short Life, but we make it short. We are not poorly supplied, but wasteful of what we have.
People are frugal in guarding their personal property; but as soon as it comes to spending time, they are most wasteful of the one thing in which it is right to be stingy.
Everyone hurries their Life on, suffering from a longing for the future and a weariness of the present. But the one who spends all their time on their own needs, who plans every day as if it were the last, neither longs for tomorrow nor fears it.