Seneca's On the Shortness of Life makes one argument and makes it hard: life is not short, we make it short by wasting it. It is a single essay, about 10,700 words in Aubrey Stewart's translation, written to a friend named Paulinus. Seneca walks through the ways people give their time away (to ambition, business, pleasure and other people's demands), contrasts them with the few who use it well, and ends by urging Paulinus to step back from public work while he still can. This guide covers what the essay says, the passages worth knowing and how to read it.
For Seneca's longer, looser treatment of the same themes, see our guide to Letters from a Stoic.
What the essay is
On the Shortness of Life (in Latin, De Brevitate Vitae) is one of Seneca's moral essays; Stewart's edition prints it among his dialogues. It runs to 20 short chapters. It is addressed to Paulinus, a friend busy with public duties: in chapter 19 Seneca describes his work as seeing that grain reaches the public granary without being stolen or spoiled, and asks whether that can compare with the study of philosophy.
Seneca himself lived from about 4 BCE to 65 CE, and spent years at the centre of Roman power before Nero ordered his death. That background is worth keeping in mind. This is an essay about busy, ambitious people written by someone who knew that life from the inside.
What it argues
Life is long enough
The essay opens by rejecting the most common complaint about life.
We do not have a very short time assigned to us, but we lose a great deal of it
Seneca, On the Shortness of Life 1 (trans. Aubrey Stewart)
we do not receive a short life, but we make it a short one, and we are not poor in days, but wasteful of them.
Seneca, On the Shortness of Life 1 (trans. Aubrey Stewart)
Life is long enough, if you know how to use it.
Seneca, On the Shortness of Life 2 (trans. Aubrey Stewart)
He separates time passing from actually living:
But all duration is time, not life
Seneca, On the Shortness of Life 2 (trans. Aubrey Stewart)
We guard money and give away time
Seneca's sharpest point is that people protect their property fiercely and hand their hours to anyone who asks.
You cannot find anyone who wants to distribute his money; yet among how many people does everyone distribute his life?
Seneca, On the Shortness of Life 3 (trans. Aubrey Stewart)
we play with what is the most precious of all things: yet it escapes men’s notice, because it is an incorporeal thing
Seneca, On the Shortness of Life 8 (trans. Aubrey Stewart)
Living is a skill you never finish learning
one’s whole life must be spent in learning how to live, and, which may perhaps surprise you more, one’s whole life must be spent in learning how to die.
Seneca, On the Shortness of Life 7 (trans. Aubrey Stewart)
Postponing is the real thief
The middle chapters go after the habit of putting life off until later. We cover those passages in Stoic quotes on the present moment, so here is just the core of it:
postponement is the greatest waste of life
Seneca, On the Shortness of Life 9 (trans. Aubrey Stewart)
The people who really live
Seneca's answer is not to do nothing. It is to spend time on what lasts, and for him that means philosophy: conversation with the best minds of the past.
The only persons who are really at leisure are those who devote themselves to philosophy: and they alone really live
Seneca, On the Shortness of Life 14 (trans. Aubrey Stewart)
we may argue with Socrates, doubt with Carneades, repose with Epicurus, overcome human nature with the Stoics, exceed it with the Cynics.
Seneca, On the Shortness of Life 14 (trans. Aubrey Stewart)
Do not envy the busy and important
When, therefore, you see a man often wear the purple robes of office, and hear his name often repeated in the forum, do not envy him: he gains these things by losing so much of his life.
Seneca, On the Shortness of Life 20 (trans. Aubrey Stewart)
How to use it
- Do Seneca's audit. In chapter 3 he imagines asking an old man to reckon up his life: how much went to creditors, clients, quarrels and running about the city on business. Try it on last week. Where did the hours actually go?
- Treat time like money. Before you say yes to a meeting, a favour or another hour on your phone, ask whether you would hand over the same amount in cash this easily (chapter 3).
- Keep something for yourself. Seneca's advice to Paulinus is to take part of his time back from public life. You probably cannot retire, but you can protect an hour a day for what matters to you.
- Read the old books. His own answer to wasted time is reading the best thinkers of the past (chapter 14). Ten pages a day counts.
How to read it
The whole essay takes under an hour, so the best way in is simply to read it through once. If you want a route:
- Chapters 1 to 3 set out the argument: life is long enough, and we waste it.
- Chapters 7 to 10 describe the "busy" people and the habit of postponing.
- Chapters 14 and 15 give Seneca's alternative: time spent with philosophy.
- Chapters 18 to 20 turn to Paulinus directly and close the essay.
Aubrey Stewart's translation (1889) is public domain and free to read online, and it is the one quoted here. Its long, colon-linked sentences take some getting used to, but the argument is easy to follow.
Sources
- Seneca, On the Shortness of Life 1, 2, 3, 7, 8, 9, 14, 19, 20, trans. Aubrey Stewart (1889).
- Seneca's dates and career from our Codex figure note on Seneca.
If you want structured practice, the 7-Day Stoic Challenge is free. Nine audio lessons and a 42-page workbook.