Seneca Moral essays
Seneca: You cannot find any one who wants to distribute…
You cannot find any one who wants to distribute his money; yet among how many people does every one distribute his life? men covetously guard their property from waste, but when it comes to waste of time, they are most prodigal of that of which it would become them to be sparing.
The passage follows a public-domain translation of Seneca’s moral essays. The reading beside it is ours.
We protect money with passwords, insurance, budgets, and contracts. Yet we hand out our time as if it will somehow be replenished. We agree to meetings without purpose, give our attention to arguments that change nothing, and let every notification interrupt the one life we have. Seneca’s point is not that generosity is bad. Time spent with people we love, work that serves others, and rest are not waste. The problem is unconscious spending. We know the price of a coffee but not the price of an hour. The latter is far more valuable, because it cannot be earned back. Before you say yes today, ask what you are exchanging. Is this request worthy of a piece of your finite life? Put one boundary around your attention: decline a needless commitment, silence a distracting app, or reserve an hour for what matters. Guarding time is not selfish. It is how you make a life available for the things you claim to value.
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