Letter 1: On Saving Time

Greetings from Seneca to his friend Lucilius.

Continue to act thus, my dear Lucilius – set yourself free for your own sake; gather and save your time, which till lately has been forced from you, or filched away, or has merely slipped from your hands.

Make yourself believe the truth of my words – that certain moments are torn from us, that some are gently removed, and that others glide beyond our reach. The most disgraceful kind of loss, however, is that due to carelessness.

Furthermore, if you will pay close heed to the problem, you will find that the largest portion of our life passes while we are doing ill, a goodly share while we are doing nothing, and the whole while we are doing that which is not to the purpose.

What man can you show me who places any value on his time, who reckons the worth of each day, who understands that he is dying daily? For we are mistaken when we look forward to death; the major portion of death has already passed. Whatever years be behind us are in death's hands.

Therefore, Lucilius, do as you write me that you are doing: hold every hour in your grasp. Lay hold of to-day's task, and you will not need to depend so much upon to-morrow's.

While we are postponing, life speeds by. Nothing, Lucilius, is ours, except time. We were entrusted by nature with the ownership of this single thing, so fleeting and slippery that anyone who will can oust us from possession.

What fools these mortals be! They allow the cheapest and most useless things, which can easily be replaced, to be charged in the reckoning, after they have acquired them; but they never regard themselves as in debt when they have received some of that precious commodity – time!

And yet time is the one loan which even a grateful recipient cannot repay. Farewell.

Seneca to Lucilius, greeting.

Continue, my Lucilius, to free yourself; reclaim, and preserve, all that time, which has hitherto been either forced from you, or stolen, or slipped insensibly away.

Believe me, it is as I say; some of our time is taken from us, some is filched away, and the rest flows from us unperceived. But the loss is most shameful, when it happens through our own negligence.

Consider well, and you will find that the greater part of our life slides away in doing ill; a great part in doing nothing; and all in doing what we ought not.

Who is there that sets any value upon time? That weighs every single day? That considers he is dying daily? Herein we deceive ourselves; we look upon death as at a great distance, when the chief part of it is already past: whatsoever of our life is spent, is in the hands of death.

Therefore, my Lucilius, as you now seem to do, account every day as a separate life. He that has thus possessed himself of to-day, will be secure of to-morrow.

While we procrastinate and delay, life steals upon us. Nothing is our own, Lucilius, but time. This one thing, so fleeting and slippery, nature has given us as a possession, from which whoever will may dispossess us.

And such is the folly of mortals, that trifling things, and of no value, things which may be easily replaced, they are willing to have set down to their account; but no man ever thinks himself indebted for time received.

Yet this is the only thing which no gratitude can repay. Farewell.