Can you think of anything more insane than how these supposedly wise people spend their free time? They work themselves to death trying to live better. They prepare for life by sacrificing life itself. They're always planning far into the future. But delay is the biggest waste of life there is. It steals each day from us. It trades away the present for empty promises about tomorrow. Nothing blocks real living like waiting — losing today while depending on tomorrow. You're betting on what fortune controls, and you're throwing away what you actually control. Where are you looking? What are you reaching for? Everything in the future is uncertain. Live right now.
Can anything be mentioned which is more insane than the ideas of leisure of those people who boast of their worldly wisdom? They live laboriously, in order that they may live better; they fit themselves out for life at the expense of life itself, and cast their thoughts a long way forwards: yet postponement is the greatest waste of life: it wrings day after day from us, and takes away the present by promising something hereafter: there is no such obstacle to true living as waiting, which loses to-day while it is depending on the morrow. You dispose of that which is in the hand of Fortune, and you let go that which is in your own. Whither are you looking, whither are you stretching forward? everything future is uncertain: live now straightway.