Use Your Time Wisely

Stoic Tips to have No Regrets on your Deathbed

Suppose you are lying on your deathbed and you look back on your life. Would you look back on your life with a feeling of gratitude and satisfaction? Or would you feel regret and remorse?

In his moral essay, On The Shortness of Life">On the Shortness of Life (original title in Latin: De brevitate vitae), Roman philosopher Lucius Annaeus Seneca offers an urgent reminder on the non-renew-ability of our most important resource: our time.

I can recommend anyone who wishes to live life to its full potential, according to the concept of a time span, to read it. It is a manifesto on how to regain back control of your life and how to experience your life time to the fullest.

Perhaps Seneca’s most famous quote comes from this essay:

It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it.

Along with Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus, Seneca was one of the three most important Stoic philosophers.

Stoicism is an ancient Greek philosophy which teaches the development of self-control, steadfastness and perseverance as a means of overcoming destructive emotions. It was developed by Zeno of Citium around 300 B.C. as a refinement of Cynicism.

Keep this thought handy when you feel a fit of rage coming on — it isn’t manly to be enraged. Rather, gentleness and civility are more human, and therefore manlier. A real man doesn’t give way to anger and discontent, and such a person has strength, courage, and endurance — unlike the angry and complaining. The nearer a man comes to a calm mind, the closer he is to strength.-Marcus Aurelius

Stoicism is not aimed at extinguishing emotions completely, but rather seeks to transform emotions by a voluntary abstinence from worldly pleasures (called Asceticism). Doing this enables a person to develop inner calm, clear insight and judgment, and freedom from suffering (which is considered the ultimate goal of stoicism).

Stoicism is not so much a set of ethical beliefs, but rather a way of life. It requires consistent practice. Including the practice of logic, Socratic dialogue and self-dialogue, contemplation of death, and a kind of meditation aimed at disciplining how to keep one’s attention to remain in the present moment, the Now.

The many similarities between the Eastern teachings of Buddhism and the Western philosophy of Stoicism have always struck me. Stoics and Buddhists point the same way to inner peace and deep happiness.

They both learn how to free ourselves from desire, how to accept and be flexible with the course of life, how to surrender yourself to the flow of life, and cheerfully liberate yourself of the ego. Both are a way to find an answer to the current pessimism and to achieve deep happiness.

Stoic Ethics

The most important premise of the Stoic Ethics is the doctrine that the world is one and can be regarded as a great living organism that is subject to the same laws of nature and has the same connection.

The second principle is that the world is rational: the world is supported by the divine logos (reason), and every human being is part of the universal logos with his personal logos.

The third principle is that the unwavering, necessary, universal law of causality (cause and effect) determines the fate of each individual.

And finally, the fourth starting point, is the thesis that the world is good: everything that happens is in the interests of all people, even though we are not aware of it and we experience evil as evident.

According to this world view, the happiness of man is in acceptance of what is, in agreement with the cosmic order.

Stoic philosophy believes that desire is a ‘passion’ of the soul. The Stoics replace desire by clear, rational will, which, driven by the Logos, converts our blind desires into sought after and thoughtful steps. Stoicism does not want to eliminate desires, but aims at turning them into a will that is subject to reason.

(For anyone who ever watched the original Star Treks, the above reminds me a bit of the Vulcans and Spock.)

Stoic philosophy thus aims to achieve two goals: peace of mind (ataraxia) and inner freedom (autarkeia). Ataraxia means that our will coincides with the cosmic order: I am free if I want what happens out of necessity. Then I do not complain anymore, I do not fight anymore, I no longer feel resentment, but I rejoice over everything and I keep my inner peace in all circumstances.

According to stoicism, people do not suffer because of the things that happen to them, but because of their thoughts about it. Irrational thoughts cause negative emotions such as irritation, fear, disappointment, jealousy and guilt. These kind of emotions do not have any positive function, cause a lot of unnecessary suffering and can be rather destructive.

We suffer more in imagination than in reality.-Seneca

Living in the ‘now’ is one of the most important prescriptions of Stoic practice, which teaches us not to flee in the past, not to turn to the future, and not to be carried away by sadness, fear, anger and desire. Instead, to live in the moment in which everything can be tolerated and changed.

The idea behind stoicism is that your will has to merge in the necessity of destiny. It is not for us to choose the things that we have no influence on but to accept the reality as it is and to change what we can: opinions, desires and aversions. This includes making choices without unnecessary insecurity and worrying in advance and without senseless regret and guilt feelings afterwards.

The greatest obstacle to living is expectancy, which hangs upon tomorrow and loses today. You are arranging what lies in Fortune’s control, and abandoning what lies in yours. What are you looking at? To what goal are you straining? The whole future lies in uncertainty: live immediately.-Seneca

Life is dhukka

In India, a few centuries before the rise of Stoicism, another wisdom developed with almost the same line of thought: Buddhism. The founder was Siddhartha Gautama Buddha. He lived in the sixth century before our era and grew up in a protected environment.

His life changed dramatically when he was thirty through four encounters: an old man, a sick person, a dead man and an ascetic crossed his path. He suddenly realized that suffering was the common destiny of mankind and that no one, rich or poor, could escape it.

He left the palace of his father, abandoned his family, and went looking for a spiritual way through which he could escape this ill-fated suffering. Which he found after devoting himself to extreme ascetic practices and deep mediation through which he attained the state of Awakened, with a complete understanding of the nature of things and a state of inner liberation.

According to Buddha, life is dhukka. Dhukka comes from ‘thirsty’, in the sense of ‘thirsting to’, ‘being attached to’. There is a way to quench this thirst: via the Noble Eightfold Path, also called the Way of the Eight Pure Elements.

His insight is that suffering is everywhere: birth is suffering, old age is suffering, death is suffering, being united with something that you do not like is suffering, being separated from something you love is suffering, not knowing what you want is suffering.

And the root cause of this suffering is caused by the fact that we attache ourselves to our life’s situations: to our relationship, friendships, family, work. This attachment makes us worrywarts.

But it is not only our attachment that makes us suffer, but also our ignorance. And by ignorance I mean the fact that people continue to be attracted to the things that cause suffering. The fact that people let themselves be guided by their desires.

You may know that a certain friendship or relationship, certain foods, drinks or drugs, are not good for you and will cause you to suffer, but you still stick to them respectively keep on consuming them. The fact that we decide to ignore these things and choose to be led by our desires, lead to suffering.

When we recognize this principle, we accept that we can not adapt the world to our desires and that our desires will not lead us to contentment and deep happiness.

How to make the most out of the time given to you

So what can we learn from all this wisdom when it comes to getting the most out of your life and making the most out of the time given to you?

On him does death lie heavily, who, but too well known to all, dies to himself unknown.-Seneca

Stoic philosopher Seneca encourages us to examine the problem that our time seems to pass by too quickly, due to our desires, to giving all our time to others, and spending too much time on what I would summarize as mind-numbing activities. He argues that we have truly lived only a short time because our lives were filled with business, stress and superficial activities.

Busy busy busy. Days and years fly by. What is life short! These are often heard statements, but Seneca thinks they are absolute nonsense. Life is too short? No, it takes long enough. But then you have to use your time well.

According to Seneca you gain time by studying philosophy, reading the lectures of great thinkers, working towards meaningful goals, and not putting off the enjoyment of life.That’s how you literally gain centuries. But most people waste their time and do not come to real life.

In beautiful anecdotes he talks about berserk ambitions and profit making, about ignorance, irrationality, dullness of mind and boredom. And about the endless postponement of good life until ‘later’. His criticism sometimes sounds surprisingly modern. For example, Seneca is strict for people who are only busy with ‘ballgame’ all day long. Or lie in the sun.

Use your time wisely, stay in control of yourself, choose the here and now. Whoever reads On the Shortness of Life, does not need a time management course anymore.

Below you will find key lessons from Stoicism, great quotes as well as some tips on How to Regain Your Time Back and How to Use your Time Wisely.

Time is Your Most Important Asset

In guarding their fortune men are often closefisted, yet, when it comes to the matter of wasting time, in the case of the one thing in which it is right to be miserly, they show themselves most extravagant.-Seneca

According to Seneca, we waste so much time because we forget that our time is limited. We throw away our time because we forget that we are going to die.

You act like mortals in all that you fear, and like immortals in all that you desire.-Seneca

We throw away our precious life time with making others like us, to get money (which we cannot use in the grave), and by being lazy, distracted and entertained.

Seneca reprimands,

You live as if you were destined to live forever, no thought of your frailty ever enters your head, of how much time has already gone by you take no heed. You squander time as if you drew from a full and abundant supply, though all the while that day which you bestow on some person or thing is perhaps your last.-Seneca, On the Shortness of Life

We live only a small part of our lives. And the rest? That is time.

Anything longer than a tweet is skimmed instead of read, we use an alarm to force us out of our sleep with violence (you may thank Plato for this weapon of terror) and if you ask someone how he or she is doing, ‘busy’ next to ‘I’m fine’ is the most common answer. I may exaggerate a bit, but the message seems clear to me: we are busy, busy, busy.

More than 2000 years ago, Seneca already mentioned this phenomenon of ‘being time pressured’ in his essay. In a period when they were still using a sundial, and a smartphone was not yet one of the primary necessities of life, people already complained about their busy lives. Life would be too short.

Seneca totally disagrees with this. According to him our time is not short at all. We are just wasting it. Life is long enough, we get plenty of room to finish the important things that matter, if we spend our time wisely.

But when life condemns us to our desire for luxury and by disinterest, if we don’t do anything good with the time given to us, we will only see the result in extreme need. The sand of time passed through our fingers unnoticed, to the point that we suddenly realize there was almost no time left.

Seneca writes that many of us live in a constant rush. We forget the past, we weary the present and we fear the future. We abuse our time by being unnecessary busy with unnecessary issues.

About one of his famous contemporaries, Seneca writes:

How many have no millimeter of free space left, with such a mass of followers around them?

This more than two thousand year old quote is perhaps even more striking for our Instagram generation than for his contemporaries. We are constantly busy with all kinds of superficial things. The outward display has become much more important than the content. With that, we throw away our most valuable property that we can never get back: our time.

Postponement is a waste of time

The greatest loss of life comes through postponement. Delay wipes the current day of your calendar and deletes the here and now with the promise of later.

You might tell yourself: ‘But if I work hard now, then later I have the time to take it easy when I retire.’ Or: ’When I’m fifty, I’ll take it easy. And with sixty I’ll resign all my positions.’

But who guarantees that you live so long? Why only start living at the finish?

While we are postponing, life speeds by.-Seneca

Make a balance of your days of life. You might conclude that you can only write off a few days that where really in your possession. When you are too busy, busy, busy, you run the chance to only see things clearly in the end.

On this basis you can decide whether or not you should spend your time differently. There are probably activities that you could spend less time on, such as binge watching another series on Netflix with a bag of M&M’s or scrolling through Instagram for the twentieth time in a day.

You can use that released time to really live. For example by studying, reading, in my case writing poetry or by doing Seneca’s own favorite activity: philosophy.

People who make time for wisdom are the only ones who have peace and freedom, the only ones who really live.

About studying philosophers Seneca states that those ‘lovers of wisdom’ and creators of thought systems, have paved many possible paths of life for us. They gave us their gifts in the forms of essays to make us aware of the concept of time and to be able to focus our mind on what is timeless, limitless and eternal. To see passed time.

The great thing about our era is that we have unrestricted access to these ideas through the World Wide Web. The past offers an endless source of brilliant thinkers with fantastic ideas and concepts of life and time.

As long as you live, keep learning how to live.- Seneca

We can ponder about the meaning of life with Marcus Aurelius, discuss with Socrates, transcend the world with Plato, put things in relative perspective with Boas, write poets with Lucretius about happiness in a senseless world, focus on the important role of family in society with Confucius, gain knowledge through your senses with Locke, think and therefore be with Descartes, meditate with Buddha and overcome human frailty with the Stoics.

If we have the greatness of mind to see beyond the narrow limits of human weakness and desires, we can create a lot of space for ourselves to expand our mind and life time experience(d).

No man was ever wise by chance.- Seneca

Time can only be spend once

If you let yourself be rushed by everything that needs to be done and get distracted by everything that jumps at you, you not only miss out on doing the things that really matter to you, but your time will also go by faster and unnoticed.

In this era where so many things are broadcasted to you through so many channels, you run the risk to loose yourself in many activities that basically add nothing to your life.

When you delete the superfluous things from your life, things that really have meaning will automatically get more space. So take a step back, slow down, and experience the seconds that pass by with more attention. Like that it will seem like the clock is ticking slower.

Life is long, if you know how to use it.-Seneca

Remember, lost time can not be retrieved. It is therefore important that you spend as much time as possible on matters that are meaningful for you.

Make more time to strengthen your bond with loved ones. Put time and effort in strengthening your ties with family, relatives and close friends. Take time to contribute to a better world.

Wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for kindness.-Seneca

When you reach the wonderful age of 90, you’ve lived through 4.73 million minutes. On your 40st birthday, you have already spent just over 2 million of that. So do not forget to use some of those valuable minutes to build on your legacy during your lifetime. To build on fulfilment. To put something of yourself in the world (like your art, your ideas, your writings, your company).

Often a very old man has no other proof of his long life than his age.-Seneca

Make an effort in trying to enjoy every moment. Realize that every second is valuable, and therefore every second is worth experiencing consciously. Go mindful through life and learn to let go of your problems and worries.

Tranquility is nothing else than the good ordering of the mind.-Seneca

Enjoy your days with a smile and a positive attitude to life. Be calm, unhurried and loving. To yourself and to the people around you.

Nothing is so bitter that a calm mind cannot find comfort in it.-Seneca

Take time for introspection. To develop yourself, to get to know yourself better. To take care of yourself and become the best possible version of yourself.

Time is the only thing you own

People are frugal in guarding their personal property; but as soon as it comes to squandering time they are most wasteful of the one thing in which it is right to be stingy.-Seneca

All belongings are distractions. They do not ultimately bring you satisfaction, but they do enchant us. They distract us from the things that really matter. If you let your life fly by collecting stuff, your house will become fuller and your heart poorer.

The greatest wealth is a poverty of desires.-Seneca

In essence, you own nothing. You’re just the manager or administrator of atoms that show themselves in the form of a smartphone, a table, a house or a car. Sooner or later these atoms will all be transformed into the star dust from which it all originated.

The only thing that belongs to us is the time.-Seneca

Time to build true friendship and relationships

Great relationships do not come naturally. You have to make time for it, offer sacrifices and continue to develop and challenge yourself. Your relatives and friends are more important than your work, than social media, than your smartphone and, in fact, all other things except your own personal development.

One of the most beautiful qualities of true friendship is to understand and to be understood.-Seneca

You do not have to build bonds with dozens of people. You only need a handful of real friends. Our ability to experience joy and love and to improve our reality by making ourselves vulnerable to others, will strengthen and deepen your relationships from which you will grow yourself. Together you can build new memories that add to how you’ll experience your time lived.

Time is reflected in our memories

The way you create or not create (new) memories determine how you will experience your time lived.

You want to live but do you know how to live? You are scared of dying and tell me, is the kind of life you lead really any different from being dead?-Seneca

Your brain only stores things that are worth saving. Your first kiss, a unique book, the first time you stepped on a bike, your first car drive, an epic movie, a fantastic world travel, a special event... If you keep on doing the same things every day, your brain no longer makes new memories. All the same memories will melt together into one big memory.

You see the minutes tick and there seems to be no end to the day. If nothing happens, your brain does not consider this time as a very special time, so there is nothing for your brain to remember in the long run. And then your life will appear as if every new day is like the day before, monotone in its appearance. One day eventlessly flowing into the next. By happening so, disguising fifty years as if it was just one.

When you look back on a period in which you have done many new things, it feels like time has passed by slowly. This is also the reason why your childhood seems to have lasted forever, while the years as an adult seem to fly by.

The solutions is to keep on doing something new. If you learn and experience a lot of new things, you will make new memories. So keep on challenging yourself. Keep growing and developing yourself. Keep collecting new and nice memories. Expand your comfort zone, travel, get to know new people, try things you’ve never done before. You will never forget things that you do for the first time!

I am not born for one corner; the whole world is my native land.-Seneca

I travel as much as I can every year and I always try my best to do new things or write about new topics. Even if it is writing about a difficult topic such as Stoicism, regrets on my deathbed or making a poem about the ‘timeless now’ :-)

Things that were hard to bear are sweet to remember.-Seneca

When you then look back on your life, time seems to have gone slower. If you make few memories, and do the same thing every day, life seems to fly by unnoticed.

This is the curse of the concept of time that we are currently hypnotized into. But do not despair or mourn, your memories might just be stored in the timeless now :-)

The One has our memories And many people remember To have lived several times before In the One lie our many experiences-Martine Weber

Time to fulfill your dreams

Suppose you are lying on your death bed and you have never done the one thing you’ve been dreaming about your whole life? Could you live (or actually die) with that? If the answer is ‘no’, then you owe it to yourself to at least once in your life put an effort in trying to fulfill that dream.

It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that things are difficult.-Seneca

You dream for a reason. Dreams come up as strong guidance from your subconsciousness that give you hints about what really matters to you and is important to your life. It is often your dreams that hand you your biggest challenges and teach lessons that will help you further develop yourself. That show you how to grow, to experience new things, to meet new people and to simply become a better person.

So get your guts together and make your dream(s) come true. Even if you have to make difficult choices, such as terminating a stable job, moving to a new place or ending a friendship that no longer makes you happy.

If we let things terrify us, life will not be worth living.-Seneca

It doesn’t happen automatically. A great life does not come by itself. A mediocre life occurs automatically. If you want to raise the bar, you have to straighten out your priorities and devote time and attention to them.

Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.-Seneca

Looking back on a great life means that you have had a great life. And that experience can begin today. Start using your time wisely!

Begin at once to live, and count each separate day as a separate life.-Seneca

Time for the ‘timeless now’

Somehow there is always a time shift going on. Everyone experiences this differently. If I would have to put words to it, I would describe it as if we are currently shifting more and more away from the concept of time and that more and more people that I encounter are busy with the concept of consciousness and awareness. Becoming aware that there is something like a timeless now, in which everything happens at the same time.

It is as if this concept of the ‘timeless now’ tries to reveal itself to me, but I just don’t (yet) possess the working knowledge to be able to grasp it completely. But maybe these are just the thoughts of someone that turned fifty last November :-)

I’ve tried to capture it in a poem. The link is included below. I hope you enjoy reading it!

Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed this, enclosed are a few of my other stories and a link to one of my recently published Poetry bundle ‘Celestial Days: Spirit of Hope and Happiness (Illuminating Poesy Book 3)">Celestial Days, Spirit of Hope and Happiness’: