Everyone agrees on this: you cannot do anything well — whether speaking or writing — if you're busy with other things. Nothing grows deep in a mind that's pulled in different directions. A distracted mind rejects whatever you try to put into it. The businessman knows less about living than anyone. There's nothing harder to learn than how to live. Other skills have plenty of teachers everywhere. Some things can be learned so well by children that they can teach them to others. But it takes your whole life to learn how to live. And here's what might surprise you even more: it takes your whole life to learn how to die.
Finally, all are agreed that nothing, neither eloquence nor literature, can be done properly by one who is occupied with something else; for nothing can take deep root in a mind which is directed to some other subject, and which rejects whatever you try to stuff into it. No man knows less about living than a business man: there is nothing about which it is more difficult to gain knowledge. Other arts have many folk everywhere who profess to teach them: some of them can be so thoroughly learned by mere boys, that they are able to teach them to others: but one's whole life must be spent in learning how to live, and, which may perhaps surprise you more, one's whole life must be spent in learning how to die.