Project Vision 21

Two millennia ago, at the time of the Roman Empire, people complained about the shortness of their lives. And they were right, since at that time the life expectancy for most people was only 35 years and someone in their 40s was considered “very old”. But, according to the Stoic philosopher Seneca, life is not short, but ill-lived.

In his essay On the Shortness of Life, written in the middle of the 1st century, Seneca argues that each person has all the years necessary to achieve during those years the achievements that they must achieve in their lives. But many people, perhaps most (and perhaps almost all), simply waste their lives.

As Seneca well says, the "people of the crowd", that is, the "unthinking crowd", complain about the shortness of life not because life is short (it is and that is a key and undeniable existential factor), but because they don’t live in such a way as to achieve their greatest achievements. They excuse themselves behind the shortness of human life for not taking responsibility for their lives.

Until just over a century ago, life expectancy in the United States was about 60 years. It’s now about 80 and today's children are anticipated to live to be 100 years old. Furthermore, the next generation could have a life expectancy of 120 years before beginning to age, that is, 120 years of healthy and active life before entering old age.

But, regardless of whether we live 30, 60 or 120 years, or even forever, each of those years is useless if we simply accumulate them, but without living them. As Seneca said, we live "without investing" in our own life.

Even more clearly, and with immense consequences for our lives in the 21st century, Seneca argues that we live our lives in such a way that "life passes before we become aware that life is passing."

For this reason, he explicitly says that "life is not short, but we make it short", or, as Seneca says, we “waste” life.

Let's be honest: we are more concern with networks, messages, posts, and even what happens to the characters of our favorite fiction (be they soap operas or sports) than with our own lives. We are distracted from the reality of our own and then when something happens and shakes us, when we become aware of life, it’s gone. 

There is not a moment when we have our lives in our hands, Seneca says, adding that we are "bad owners" of our own life. So bad, he maintains, that those who are good guardians of their own lives (the wise ones), noticing we are not, will not share anything of value with us.

Meanwhile, he says, we just live our lives “following the decisions of others”, either “paralyzed by sloth” or “exhausted by greed”, always making new plans, but going nowhere. We merely exist, but don’t live. 

Seneca spoke 2,000 years ago, but his message is true today and for each of us.