“How many have laid waste to your life when you weren’t aware of what you were losing, how much was wasted in pointless grief, foolish joy, greedy desire, and social amusements—how little of your own was left to you. You will realize you are dying before your time!” — Seneca, On the Brevity of Life, 3.3b
Inspired by The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living
Life is too short, and there are only so many actively functioning hours a day for us. So, we must be selective with what we do with our time. That’s not to say we must only do fun things. We do need to work, whether we are an entrepreneur or we work for a company. Sure, I would rather binge watch TV all day than work. Will Jim and Pam get married? I will never know now that they took The Office off of Netflix, and I will not pay for another streaming service! But, I gots me some bills to pay. So that leaves even less time in a day. We need to make the rest of the time count. This means we may need to say “No” to some things, which can be very difficult sometimes. Sure we would like to help everybody at all times. But, we can’t do that if our metaphoric tank is empty. We need to take time to do things that are important for us so that we may thrive and be more productive. If you are saying “Yes” to something that is not important when there is something more important to do, then you are saying “No” to you. And you lose time that you can never get back. So start saying “Yes” to you, and you will begin to have more joy and passion.
