The Senator

Seneca

On the Shortness of Life

Seneca's most urgent essay — a wake-up call about how we waste our lives on things that don't matter.

87 cards · ~48 min read

Preview

But many people think the same way. They want to keep working long after their bodies can handle it. They fight against their physical decline. They think old age is terrible for just one reason — it forces them into retirement. The law won't draft soldiers after fifty or require senators to attend after sixty. But people have a harder time giving themselves permission to rest than getting legal permission to do so.