Show Me How To Live

The Daily Stoic for May 23rd. “Show Me How To Live”.

“Show me that the good life doesn’t consist in its length, but in its use, and that it is possible—no, entirely too common—for a person who has had a long life to have lived too little.”
—SENECA, MORAL LETTERS, 49.10b

Time is something completely subjective. You spend the week agonizing on your office chair, waiting for the weekend to come, and then it passes by in a breeze. Or you are waiting for your first date to arrive, and the clock seems to have stopped. You spend the night with this person, and the dawn seems to come earlier than any other morning.

Hence, you can live a boring and miserable life for 100 years, or live intensely in just 50.

Show Me How To Live

When I was a worker in a cubicle, as years passed by, I started to have the feeling that time was running faster. I felt like every year was getting shorter. As I explained in The One Path To Serenity, it was a worrisome feeling. I knew I had to change something.

That feeling, alongside some other thoughts and concerns that had been growing on me for years, was the catalyst for quitting my job. I have walked a long path since then. It’s not always been easy. Nonetheless, that feeling of time running away like sand grains escaping from my hands is gone.

What has changed? In my case, the routine is missing. I no longer have to go to a grey cubicle to repeat the same tasks every day, get in the same car and the same traffic jam every morning,

Not that I crave risk and adventure. I am actually a very home-loving person. Maybe what we need is just feeling fulfilled and adding something new to our lives every now and then.

Nobody can show us how to live our lives. We all have to learn that by ourselves. However, I can say outright that, in my case, I needed to make some bold decisions to make my life more meaningful.

Conclusion

Today’s Daily Stoic, “Show Me How To Live”, discusses an obvious truth: That time is relative, and the most important thing is how we live and enjoy it, not just its length. Again, quality over quantity. Only you can tell what your life needs so time stops running faster every year. Most of the times, it’s just a matter of following our guts and being brave to do some bold decisions.