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1/ One of the books I looked over before doing my annual review is Seneca's On The Shortness of Life. A thread with a short summary and some favorite quotes:
2/ On the Shortness of Life (De Brevitate Vitae) is an essay written by Seneca the Younger, a Roman Stoic philosopher, sometime around the year 49 AD, to his father-in-law Paulinus.
3/ Seneca’s main point is that nature gives people enough time to do what is really important and the individual must spend the time properly, but most people fret it away.
4/ In general, Seneca argues, time is best used by living in the present moment in pursuit of the intentional, purposeful life.
5/ Seneca is trying to address a fundamental question around what it means to live a good life. Why do so many people feel regret in their later years rather than gratitude for all they have done?
6/ The central problem, Seneca argues, is a lack of intentionality around how we spend our time. We covet money and property and fame but fret away the most valuable resource: time.
7/ By using your time intentionally and deliberately, you neither long for nor fear tomorrow.
8/ Some quotes I really like:
9/ "The majority of mortals, Paulinus, complain bitterly of the spitefulness of Nature, because we are born for a brief span of life,
10/ because even this space that has been granted to us rushes by so speedily and so swiftly that all save a very few find life at an end just when they are getting ready to live."
11/ "It is not that we have a short space of time, but that we waste much of it."
12/ "You will hear many men saying: “After my fiftieth year I shall retire into leisure, my sixtieth year shall release me from public duties.” And what guarantee, pray, have you that your life will last longer?"
13/ "It takes the whole of life to learn how to live, and—what will perhaps make you wonder more—it takes the whole of life to learn how to die."
14/ "'When will vacation time come?' Everyone hurries his life on and suffers from a yearning for the future and a weariness of the present...
15/ But he who bestows all of his time on his own needs, who plans out every day as if it were his last, neither longs for nor fears the morrow."
16/ "it is better to have knowledge of the ledger of one’s own life than of the corn-market."
17/ Put together all my favorite quotes from Seneca here: taylorpearson.me/book-review/se…
18/ These are the other books I frequently look over:
19/ I have a free post that details the rest of my annual planning process here: taylorpearson.me/planning/
20/ I'm also hosting a one-time annual review and planning workshop this weekend with @fortelabs that includes access to both our courses: learn.fortelabs.co/p/building-a-s…
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