What Seneca's On the Shortness of Life Taught Me About Time

Seneca's On the Shortness of Life is the book behind this record of what I've started doing at 66. Written nearly two thousand years ago by the Roman Stoic philosopher, its central question — why do people complain that life is short, when really it's how they use it that's the problem — still feels remarkably current. I've written before on this blog about lessons drawn from Norman Cousins' books on healing, but this time I picked up something quite different. At 66, with more occasions to think about the time I have left, this book pushed me to think about "healthy life expectancy" not just as a physical matter, but as a matter of how I actually spend my time.

Rejecting the idea that "life is too short" — a practice of resetting my sense of time.

The world Seneca lived in

Seneca the Younger was born around the turn of the era in what is now Córdoba, in southern Spain, and died in 65 CE, having spent much of his life at the unstable centre of the Roman Empire. His lifetime spanned the reigns of Caligula, Claudius, and Nero — a stretch of the Julio-Claudian dynasty marked by erratic rule and repeated purges. Despite being a philosopher, he was drawn into court politics under Claudius and exiled to Corsica for eight years, before being recalled to serve as tutor to the young Nero and later as one of his closest political advisers. In his final years, however, he fell under suspicion of involvement in a conspiracy against Nero and was ultimately ordered to take his own life.

In other words, Seneca wasn't a philosopher writing from the quiet safety of a study — he shaped his ideas while living constantly near power, in an environment where even tomorrow's safety was never guaranteed. The urgency running through On the Shortness of Life — the sense that time can be taken from you at any moment, and that the busiest people are often the ones least in possession of their own lives — is hard to separate from his own lived experience of exile and looming political danger. He's also a figure often criticised for the gap between his philosophy and his life — preaching restraint while amassing considerable personal wealth — but that very tension seems to me to give the book an urgency that couldn't have come from a calmer, safer life. Reading it at 66, I think it's partly this background that makes the words land not as tidy textbook lessons, but as something written by someone who genuinely didn't know what tomorrow would bring.

Rejecting the idea that "life is too short"

Seneca opens by arguing that most people who complain life is too short aren't actually short on time — they simply waste most of it. Caught up in busyness, handing their time over to other people's errands, they often only realise, once old age arrives, that they wish they had lived more deliberately.

Reading this, the first thing I stopped saying was "I don't have time." Whenever I catch myself about to postpone something with that excuse, I now ask instead: what did I actually spend my time on this week? Writing it down roughly for the past week, I was surprised to see how much of it had gone to things I hadn't particularly wanted to do in the first place.

Questioning "busyness" itself

Seneca is fairly blunt about this: the busier someone appears, the less likely they are to actually be living their own life. People who are pulled around by other people's requests, other people's opinions, and other people's schedules, he suggests, can't really be said to have "lived," however long they survive.

Since retiring, I'm nowhere near as busy as I once was, but I still catch myself filling my calendar simply because I was asked, or because it felt hard to say no. Lately, before adding anything new to my schedule, I pause and ask myself: is this something I actually want, or did I just find it difficult to decline? I think this book is part of why I've stopped feeling guilty about saying no.

Here's the book I mentioned. Seneca, On the Shortness of Life

Accepting that learning how to live takes a lifetime

Seneca writes that learning how to live takes an entire lifetime — and so does learning how to die. Most people, he says, only try to take stock of their lives once old age is already upon them, which is too late; the art of living is something to be practised continuously, from a young age onward.

Oddly, this line made me feel lighter rather than daunted. It reframed things for me — not "too late," but "still learning, starting today." I've started deliberately setting aside time to read about health, and to ask others about how they relate to their own bodies as they age. The stance of "there's still more to learn" rather than "it's a bit late now" seems, on its own, to give me a certain lift.

Treating the past as an asset to look back on

One part that stayed with me was what Seneca says about the past. Time that has already passed, he argues, isn't lost — for someone who has lived thoughtfully, it becomes something safe to revisit again and again, a kind of asset. Unlike the anxious present or the uncertain future, the past is the one thing no one can take from you.

Since reading this, I've started spending a few minutes before bed recalling one small good thing from the day. Nothing has to be significant — a flower blooming in the garden, a slightly longer conversation with someone. Keeping up this small habit has made my days start to feel less like something that disappears and more like something that accumulates.

Keeping time for myself

Toward the end of the book, Seneca argues for the importance of setting aside time to live for oneself — not a life consumed entirely by other people's needs, but one where you deliberately protect time to sit with your own thoughts and settle your own mind.

Taking that to heart, I've started keeping one afternoon a week that isn't shaped around anyone else's schedule — "my own afternoon." I don't do anything special during it: reading quietly, thinking things through, or simply doing nothing much at all. Just having that time set aside has quietly changed how I approach the busyness of the other days.

Keeping one afternoon a week that isn't shaped around anyone else's schedule.

Thinking of time as quality, not quantity

What stayed with me most from reading Seneca is the distinction between living long and living well. Extending healthy life expectancy, I've come to think, isn't only about avoiding illness or staying physically active — it's also about reconsidering how I actually spend my time, day to day. Before complaining that time is short, look at how the time I already have is being used. Don't let busyness carry me along; keep time that's genuinely mine. At 66, I have a feeling that these small, deliberate practices, added up over time, will quietly enrich the days ahead.

The book I mentioned here:

Seneca, On the Shortness of Life

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