Today’s Teacher: Seneca the Younger (4 BCE – 65 CE)
The Teaching
“It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it. Life is long enough, and a sufficiently generous amount has been given to us for the highest achievements if it were all well invested.”
— Seneca, “On the Shortness of Life”
Who Was Seneca?
Lucius Annaeus Seneca was a Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, and dramatist who lived during the height of the Roman Empire. Born in Córdoba, Spain, Seneca became one of Rome’s most influential thinkers and served as an advisor to Emperor Nero. Despite his immense wealth and political power, Seneca dedicated his life to understanding what truly matters: how to live well, how to face adversity, and how to use our limited time wisely.
His writings on Stoic philosophy have survived two millennia because they address timeless human struggles. Seneca didn’t write from an ivory tower—he wrote as someone navigating the complexity of Roman political life, dealing with exile, illness, and eventually, a forced suicide ordered by Nero. His wisdom comes from lived experience.
Understanding the Wisdom
The Problem Seneca Identified
Nearly 2,000 years ago, Seneca observed something that feels startlingly modern: people constantly complain about not having enough time, yet simultaneously squander the time they have. Sound familiar?
In “On the Shortness of Life,” written as a letter to his friend Paulinus, Seneca argues that our lives aren’t actually short—we just treat our time as if it’s unlimited. We postpone what matters, saying “I’ll do that when I retire” or “I’ll start that next year.” Meanwhile, we freely give away our hours to things and people that don’t truly serve us.
Why This Matters Today
Think about your typical day. How many hours disappear into:
- Endless scrolling through social media
- Meetings that could have been emails
- Worrying about things outside your control
- Saying “yes” to obligations you don’t care about
- Consuming content that leaves you unchanged
Seneca would argue that the problem isn’t your busy schedule—it’s that you’re busy with the wrong things. He wrote this during a time without smartphones, yet his observation cuts straight to our modern condition. We’re more distracted than ever, yet we haven’t changed the fundamental way we waste our most precious resource.
The Core Insight
Seneca’s revolutionary idea is this: you already have enough time for what truly matters. The issue isn’t quantity; it’s allocation.
He compares our treatment of time to how we treat money. If someone stole your wallet, you’d be outraged. Yet when people steal your time—through pointless requests, interruptions, or drama—you barely notice. When you waste money, you regret it. When you waste time, you act as if there’s an endless supply.
But there isn’t.
How to Practice This Wisdom Today
1. Conduct a Time Audit (Morning Practice)
Before your day begins, spend five minutes asking:
- What will I do today that truly matters?
- What am I doing today out of obligation rather than intention?
- Where am I likely to waste time, and can I prevent it?
Write down three non-negotiable priorities. Everything else is secondary.
2. Recognize Time Thieves (Throughout the Day)
Seneca identified several categories of people who steal our time. In modern terms:
The Time Thieves:
- Those who demand your attention without respecting your priorities
- Digital platforms designed to capture your focus
- Your own tendency to procrastinate on meaningful work
- Worry and anxiety about things you cannot control
When you notice time being stolen, pause. Ask: “Is this how I want to invest this moment?” Then make an active choice.
3. Invest in “Highest Achievements” (Intentional Living)
Seneca doesn’t mean achievements in the modern sense of status or wealth. He means:
- Deep relationships with people you love
- Work that uses your unique talents
- Learning that expands your understanding
- Experiences that create meaning
- Rest that genuinely restores you
Identify one “highest achievement” area in your life. Block time for it today. Treat this time as sacred—as important as any meeting with your boss.
4. Practice the Evening Review
Seneca recommended daily self-examination. Before bed, ask yourself:
- How did I spend my time today?
- What did I do that brought me closer to living well?
- Where did I waste time, and why?
- What will I do differently tomorrow?
This isn’t about guilt. It’s about awareness. You can’t change patterns you don’t see.
A Modern Application: The Sunday Night Problem
Let me give you a concrete example. Many people experience “Sunday Scaries”—that anxious feeling Sunday evening about the upcoming work week. They’ve spent the whole weekend, yet they feel exhausted and unprepared.
Seneca would ask: How did you actually spend your weekend?
Often, we fritter away our free time on activities that neither refresh us nor accomplish anything meaningful. We scroll, we binge-watch, we say yes to social obligations we don’t enjoy. Then Sunday night arrives, and we haven’t done the things that actually restore us—time in nature, creative projects, deep conversation, genuine rest.
The Seneca Solution: Guard your weekend time as fiercely as your work time. If you wouldn’t schedule a pointless three-hour meeting on Tuesday, don’t commit to activities on Saturday that drain rather than energize you. Invest your free time in what Seneca called “highest achievements”—not achievement in the productivity sense, but in the living-well sense.
The Deeper Philosophy
Life Is Long Enough—If You Use It Well
Seneca’s most radical claim is that life is actually long. We only perceive it as short because we waste so much of it. He points out that many people suddenly become aware of life’s brevity only when they’re old and looking back. Then they regret all the postponement, all the time given to people and pursuits that didn’t matter.
His solution? Live as if you’re mortal—because you are. Not in a morbid way, but in a clarifying way. When you remember that your time is finite, you become more selective about how you use it.
Present-Moment Awareness
Seneca argued that we don’t really “have” the past or the future—we only have now. The past is gone, and the future is uncertain. The only time we truly possess is the present moment.
This doesn’t mean ignoring the future or learning from the past. It means not sacrificing the present for an imagined future that may never come. How many people put off joy, relationships, and meaning until “someday”—and someday never arrives?
The Freedom of Saying “No”
Much of Seneca’s wisdom centers on freedom. Not political freedom, but personal freedom—the freedom to live according to your values rather than others’ expectations.
Every time you say “yes” to something that doesn’t align with your priorities, you’re saying “no” to something that does. Seneca would encourage you to flip this: say “no” more often to obligations, distractions, and time-wasters, so you can say “yes” to what genuinely matters.
Your Practice for Today
Here’s a simple challenge based on Seneca’s teaching:
Choose one hour today—just one—and invest it completely in something that represents your “highest achievement.” Not what’s urgent, not what someone else wants, but what will matter when you look back on your life.
Maybe it’s:
- An hour of undistracted time with your child
- Working on that creative project you keep postponing
- A conversation with someone you love
- Learning something that genuinely fascinates you
- Movement that makes you feel alive
- Silent contemplation or meditation
One hour. Fully invested. No phone, no multitasking, no guilt.
At the end of the day, notice how that hour felt compared to the hours you spent reacting, scrolling, or doing things you didn’t choose.
Closing Reflection
Seneca wrote his wisdom while navigating one of history’s most turbulent periods. He faced exile, political intrigue, and ultimately death by forced suicide. Yet his insights on time management have outlasted the Roman Empire itself.
Why? Because the wisdom isn’t about time management techniques or productivity hacks. It’s about something deeper: how do you want to have lived?
That question can’t be answered tomorrow or next year. It can only be answered today, in how you choose to spend this present moment.
You have enough time. You’ve always had enough time.
The question is: what will you do with it?
Reflection Questions
Take a moment to journal or contemplate:
- If I only had one year left to live, what would I stop doing immediately?
- What am I postponing that I could actually do this week?
- Who or what consistently steals my time, and how can I set better boundaries?
- When I’m old and looking back, what will I wish I had spent more time on?
Tomorrow’s Wisdom
Join us tomorrow as we explore a teaching from Rumi, the 13th-century Persian poet and Sufi mystic, on the transformative power of embracing what breaks you open.
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