“Begin at once to live, and count each
separate day as a separate life.”
This powerful advice was given more than two thousand years ago in 49AD by the great ancient Roman stoic philosopher Lucius Annaeus Seneca. It was contained in his immortal moral essay entitled De Brevitate Vitae (On the Shortness of Life) which dealt essentially with the unfortunate fact that man would rather spend most of the precious time given to him in wasteful and meaningless pursuits, than in making full and purposeful use of it. He lamented that although when it is used correctly, each day contains enough time to fully satisfy everything that needs to be satisfied, yet in his compulsion to ensure that he will extract as much as he can from each moment of the day, mankind ignores this truth and instead, wastes each day absorbed with the mistakes of yesterday, and with worrying about tomorrow. As a result, he never fully sees the opportunities that today has to offer, and, as a direct result of this, he often pays a heavy price in disappointments and in frustrations. Seneca himself, took pains to advise:
“Life should only be lived in the present, and only in pursuit of intentional purposes.”
The truth in Seneca’s advice has lost nothing of its luster even after the passage of more than two millennia, and it continues to ring out loudly and clearly to those who care to listen. Yet despite this, only a relatively small number of people consciously make the effort to truly live in the present. Although we readily give lip service to the cliché “live each day as if it were your last day,” few of us ever try to do so. Nor do we take the time each morning when we wake up, to consider that there was no guarantee that this will have happened, nor for that matter, that the day itself will last to the end. Nor do we ever pause long enough to really take stock of our true needs, and match them with our desires and our capabilities. Instead, like so many others around us, we are driven to feel that we must just try to take hold of as much as we can get our hands on, without knowing why; except that it feels good, and satisfies our insecurities. Throughout the history of mankind on this earth, this attitude has continued in spite of all the changes that have taken place. Very few have bothered to learn that life becomes more meaningful when we live only to satisfy our needs, rather than securing as much as we ca. And we have continued to ignore the advice of Marcus Aurelius, the ancient Roman Emperor, among many others, who have all insisted that:
“When you arise in the morning, think of what a special privilege it is to be alive; - to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.”
But trying to live each day in the way we ought to live, is neither easy, nor does it come readily to the great majority of us. This is not because we are ignorant of the advantages of doing so, but rather as a consequence of our deeply embedded instinct of holding on to the past, and of being apprehensive and concerned about the future. Over the centuries of human evolution, we have developed a confusing paradox of how we should best use our time on the planet. Instead of recognizing the obvious need to conduct life in the present, we become locked by our past experiences, or by our projections of the future, and as a result, lose our perspective. Rather than being concerned about our own needs, we tend allow other people to influence or determine our choices, and instead of satisfying our own hopes and needs, we devote our time trying to please the expectations of others. The end result of this paradox is that we gradually lose sight of the reality that is the present, and focus on the mirage of illusions created by anticipation. This I believe, was the intent of this Unknown author when he so wisely noted:
“Rather than seeing what is, we look for what was, or what might be!”
John Green, a successful American author, in trying to describe the long-term effects of this kind of behavior on us, in an appropriate context, painted the following picture:
“You spend your whole life stuck in the labyrinth, thinking about how you will escape one day, and how awesome it will be; but you never do it. You just use the future to escape the present.”
Whenever we convince ourselves of the truth of a situation, we tend to stop searching for the evidence to confirm the change, and instead, begin to anticipate how we should be adapting to it. The net result of this approach is that, however the outcome, we will be left unhappy and unfulfilled, and less inclined to try new directions. So that, rather than living with the expectation of change as we ought to, we tend to lock ourselves into a prison of uncertainty, and lose the freedom that comes with growth and change. We end up, not trying to live each day in the present to its fullest, as we should all be doing, but spending it preoccupied with the past and the future, and wasting the beauty of each day, with all its blessings.
But deciding to make full use of each day carries responsibilities which many of us may find onerous. At minimum, it means showing up each day awake and aware, fully willing to accept what comes along; the joy, the pain, the stress, the frustrations, the failures and the successes. It means deliberately slowing down and savoring the ‘gifts’ that nature provides each day, including the beauty of night and day, the glory of sunshine, the majesty of the changing seasons and the unpredictable powers of the sea. It means listening to the sound of wind, the music of the birds and the noises of the trees. It means that we take the time to truly hear others, to understand that, despite the fact that they may or may not be agreeable, they are still part of the day. It means also, that, irrespective of the kind of day, whether overflowing with energy and enthusiasm, or despondent and dejected, does not permit you to engage nor disqualify yourself from the day. It means, in fact that on that day, you must still decide to live each day to the fullest, notwithstanding whether you conquered all your fears and anxieties, or feel broken and intimidated to have to face the coming day, or even, that you had caused pain and suffering to others, or they had done it to you.
Charles Darwin, the great British naturalist, and author of the ground breaking, “The evolution of the species,” in speaking of the failure of the human being to make full use of the life given to him, stated;
“A man who dares to waste an hour of his time,
has not discovered the value of his life.”
In saying this, he recognized the full value of living purposely and lamented the fact that most people make very poor decisions concerning the use of their time, without ever realizing its effect on their lives. This statement is not unlike the statement that a colleague of mine made to me many years ago; one which at that time, I challenged that:
“We should always seize the day (“carpe diem”), for since life
may end at any time, it becomes important that that we appreciate all we can, while it still lasts.”
Life is not a dress rehearsal but the only one we each will ever have. It was given to us to make use of, without any instructions, or, for that matter, any guaranties or promises. We are left entirely to our own resources to do what we can, and to derive the best we can, from it. Yet few of us ever bother to consciously live in the present, nor do we take the time to appreciate the full import of doing so. Perhaps, this is precisely what this Unknown Author was trying to convey to us when he offered this beautiful advice:
“The birds sing each morning because they know that they have another day to live. Life and mornings are gifts. Learn to enjoy them as the birds do.”
-This indeed, is the true message that we must all abide by, if we wish to get the best out of every day that we have been allotted to use on this earth. For in the end, it does not matter whether or not your name is emblazoned on buildings and monuments, or repeated over and over by others. What truly matters, above all else, is whether you are able to look back at your life and confidently report: “Carpe diem!”
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