On the Shortness of Life, Section 3

Seneca — The Senator

You'll hear many people say, "After I turn fifty, I'll finally take time for myself. When I'm sixty, I'll retire from public life." But what makes you think you'll live that long? Who promised that everything will go according to your plan? Aren't you ashamed to save only the scraps of your life for yourself? You're planning to enjoy your own mind and live for yourself only during the time when you can't work anymore. How ridiculous to start living just when you have to die! What foolish forgetfulness of death — to put off wise decisions until you're fifty or sixty, and to plan that your real life will begin at an age that most people never reach.

Seneca — The Senator Original

You will hear many men say, "After my fiftieth year I will give myself up to leisure: my sixtieth shall be my last year of public office": and what guarantee have you that your life will last any longer? who will let all this go on just as you have arranged it? are you not ashamed to reserve only the leavings of your life for yourself, and appoint for the enjoyment of your own right mind only that time which you cannot devote to any business? How late it is to begin life just when we have to be leaving it! What a foolish forgetfulness of our mortality, to put off wholesome counsels until our fiftieth or sixtieth year, and to choose that our lives shall begin at a point which few of us ever reach.

On the Shortness of Life, Section 3 — In Plain English