All busy people live unhappy lives. But the most miserable are those who aren't even busy with their own work. They have to sleep when someone else sleeps. They walk at someone else's pace. Even their love and hate — the most free things we have — are controlled by others. If these people want to know how short their lives are, they should think about how little of their time actually belongs to them.
The position of all busy men is unhappy, but most unhappy of all is that of those who do not even labour at their own affairs, but have to regulate their rest by another man's sleep, their walk by another man's pace, and whose very love and hate, the freest things in the world, are at another's bidding. If such men wish to know how short their lives are, let them think how small a fraction of them is their own.