On Life and Death

I enjoy my life thus far because I don’t spend too much time measuring how long all this will remain.

P.S: Most people loved the entries on How to Deepen Your Friendships, Part I, Part II & Part III. Also check out the entries on How To Deal With Toxic People & How to Prevent and Overcome Burnout. Happy reading!

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By BreezeChai in X

“My days have this one goal, as do my nights; this is my task and my study, to put an end to old evils. I make it so that my day is a small version of my whole life. I don’t grab at it as though it were my last one, but I look upon it as though it could be my last…I enjoy my life thus far because I don’t spend too much time measuring how long all this will remain.” — Seneca

“If my span of life is cut short, I will say that I lacked nothing that would render that life happy. I did not prepare for that far-off day that my greedy hopes had promised would be my last, but rather I regarded every day as though it were my last….Just as a man of smaller stature can be complete, so a life can be complete in a smaller stretch of time. Life span stands outside our control. It’s not in my power how long I will exist, but rather how long I will truly exist.” — Seneca

I was out with colleagues the other night when one of them said life is nothing more than a continual process of disintegration from a complex to a single-cell organism. And of course, it's true. We all die. Since the day we were born we’ve been marching toward death. The youngest, the beautiful, the kindest, the most promising among us- none are spared, and it's really sad. But what irritated me the most is the spirit in which he said it- there was no fight in him; it's as if there was no use in having high standards, in striving for greatness, in having hope, in guarding our little moments of tranquility. That's what I reject. There's much more to life than dwelling on the useless side of the anticipation of death- in living recklessly and making poor decisions just because we all die, in drawing a lazy deduction about life instead of holding the cognitively loaded paradox- that yes, we might die at any time, yet, we might live to see the future and wisdom is preparing for both scenarios. For there's the ethereal taste of good food when you’re starving, the creation and sculpting of an idea into a beautiful work- a cool business, there's the elation you get when people appreciate what you do, there's the joy and pride of thriving under the stress you thought would break you, there's the excitement of working on a lofty goal and seeing it slowly come true, there's the dazzled feeling you get when you see a beautiful person- you just can't explain it. And I don't know about you, but all these things make my soul expand and not reduce life into a mere linear process. There's so much poetry and becoming I want to experience in this life that I must show contempt to death- I won’t let it’s gloominess hold more significance than a bright summer’s day.

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