Welcome to Stoic Snippets,
The track that is short in time but not in depth.
Set yourself free for your own sake,
Gather and save your time,
Which till lately has been forced from you,
Or flinched away,
Or has merely slipped through your hands.
Certain moments are torn from us,
Some are gently removed,
Others glide beyond our reach.
The most disgraceful kind of loss,
However,
Is that due to carelessness.
Seneca.
Let's do exactly as Seneca describes here.
As you think of your past week or day,
Think about time in these three categories.
The time that was forced from you,
Think about the times you were in traffic,
The wait time you're on a call,
Or an inconvenience you couldn't escape.
Now think for a moment of a time that slipped away,
You got lost cleaning your house,
Or painting,
Or doing some work,
Maybe you were even daydreaming.
Now lastly think about this disgraceful loss that Seneca describes,
The type of loss of time that is carelessness.
The time you spend knowingly doing something that either you shouldn't be doing,
Or worse yet,
You shouldn't be doing and you know that you shouldn't be doing it.
The habits we have picked up and that do not serve us,
That eat away at our day,
At our life,
Minute by minute.
The meeting that we agree to go to with no intention of taking any further.
The videos we watch that have no bearing on our lives that help us in no way shape or form.
The activities that we embark on that we have no interest in.
The conversations and arguments we get stuck into that really are pointless.
Life is short right?
Wrong.
Life has plenty of time,
It's just that we are so wasteful of it as Seneca writes.
We look constantly at what we can add to our schedule to make our lives better,
But rarely do we look at what we could take away,
And the reality is you could improve your life drastically by taking things out.
Like a sculptor you could create art by what you took away,
Not by what you add.
In modern days this has been encapsulated by Barry Ronenstein who writes this,
You have three buckets in your life.
Things you have to do,
Things you want to do,
And the things you should do.
Your life's work should be to eliminate the should bucket.
I really like this from Barry Ronenstein,
It made me think we should always remember a saying,
Life is too short for should.
For more dated and powerful story of this look no further than Michelangelo,
Who when asked how he created works of art like David,
He remarked,
The sculptor is already complete within the marble block before I even start my work,
It is already there,
I just have to chisel away at the superfluous material.
Now think back to your life and remark how you could make your life a work of art,
Not by adding things but recognizing that just like the block of marble that Michelangelo refers to,
You have a block of life which is made up of days just like this.
Take what is superfluous away,
Go make your life that work of art.
Good luck out there.
Now in my humble opinion there's no better way to sculpt the life you want than with the tool of stoicism and if you want to learn more about stoicism there's no better way than coming to my retreat this year,
You can find all the details under my profile here on InsideTimer.
I hope to see you there.
