On the Shortness of Life: Life is Long if You Know How to Use It

THE BOOK 'On the Shortness of Life' (De Brevitate Vitae) is a moral essay written by Seneca the Younger, a Roman Stoic philosopher, sometime around the year 49 AD, to his father-in-law Paulinus. The philosopher brings up many Stoic principles on the nature of time, namely that people waste much of it in meaningless pursuits. According to the essay, nature gives man enough time to do what is really important and the individual must allot it properly. In general, time can be best used in the study of philosophy, according to Seneca. THE AUTHOR As 'a major philosophical figure of the Roman Imperial Period', Seneca 's lasting contribution to philosophy has been to the school of Stoicism. His writing is highly accessible and was the subject of attention from the Renaissance onwards by writers such as Michel de Montaigne. He has been described as 'a towering and controversial figure of antiquity' and 'the world 's most interesting Stoic'. Seneca wrote a number of books on Stoicism, mostly