“I don’t have time” is perhaps the most repeated phrase of our days. We say it in a rush, as both an excuse and a sentence. And yet, almost two thousand years ago, a Roman philosopher had already warned us that the problem, often, is not the amount of time, but how we use it.
In his dialogue On the Shortness of Life, Seneca writes that life is not short: it is we who make it so by wasting it. We spend it by postponing, always living in wait for the future, giving our hours to everyone except ourselves. “It is not that we have a short time to live,” he says, “but that we waste a lot of it.” We carefully guard our possessions and our money, but we let time — the one truly irretrievable thing — slip through our fingers without noticing.
The lesson is surprisingly practical. Try treating time the way you’d treat money: know where it goes. Saying no to what doesn’t matter is saying yes to what does. Cut the distractions that steal hours without giving you joy, and devote at least one full hour a day to what you truly value — a person, a project, a moment of quiet.
We can’t make life longer, but we can stop wasting it. And often one honest question is enough, asked again and again: does this, right now, deserve my time?
Sources
- Seneca, L. A. De Brevitate Vitae (On the Shortness of Life), ca. 49 CE.
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