Me and Kayce at the “Y”
Truly Exist
Seneca wrote, "It’s not in my power how long I will live, but rather how long I will truly exist.”
The wisdom offered here is plain: it's not how long one lives, but what one does with the time he or she has that counts. Some people who die at a very old age have hardly lived at all. Some die as slaves, and they don't even know it. Seneca wrote in another place, "I could name a former Consul who is a slave to a little old woman, a millionaire who is the slave of the cleaning woman . . ."
How much time has been lost, frittered away, wasted? There is a difference between rest time and wasted time. We need rest, some measure of distraction, but that's no place to live. Rest is how we recharge for life! I once heard a doctor warn a patient who obviously got laziness confused with living: "get busy living, or get busy dying!"
There is no return on wasted time. There is no going back. Time well spent being creative, writing, playing music, investing in others, contributing to the world in which you live, loving, giving honor where it's due, showing respect, engaging opportunity, learning from mistakes--giving yourself away--the return is a fulfilled life.
Use what is within your power to live while you can.
Popular posts from this blog
I’ll Be Gnome For Christmas
The Island-Fish
“O ye passengers, whom may God preserve! come up quickly in to the ship, hasten to embark, and leave your merchandise, and flee with your lives, and save yourselves from destruction; for this apparent island, upon which ye are, is not really an island, but it is a great fish that hath become stationary in the midst of the sea, and the sand hath accumulated upon it, so that it hath become like an island, and trees have grown upon it since times of old; and when ye lighted the fire upon it, the fish felt the heat, and put itself in motion, and now it will descend with you into the sea, and ye will all be drowned: then seek for yourselves escape before destruction, and leave the merchandise.—The passengers, therefore, hearing the words of the master of the ship, hastened to go up into the vessel, leaving the merchandise, and their other goods, and their copper cooking-pots, and their fire-pots; and some reached the ship, and others reached it not. The island had moved, and descended...
“And so, about this tomb of mine . . . “
“VANITY, saith the preacher, vanity! Draw round my bed: is Anselm keeping back? Nephews—sons mine … ah God, I know not! Well— She, men would have to be your mother once, Old Gandolf envied me, so fair she was! What’s done is done, and she is dead beside, Dead long ago, and I am Bishop since, And as she died so must we die ourselves, And thence ye may perceive the world’s a dream. Life, how and what is it? As here I lie In this state-chamber, dying by degrees, Hours and long hours in the dead night, I ask “Do I live, am I dead?” Peace, peace seems all. Saint Praxed’s ever was the church for peace; And so, about this tomb of mine. I fought With tooth and nail to save my niche, ye know: —Old Gandolf cozened me, despite my care; Shrewd was that snatch from out the corner South He graced his carrion with, God curse the same! Yet still my niche is not so cramped...