Brigid Delaney

“You are living as if destined to live forever; your own frailty never occurs to you; you don’t notice how much time has already passed, but squander it as though you had a full and overflowing supply—though all the while that very day which you are devoting to somebody or something may be your last. You act like mortals in all that you fear, and like immortals in all that you desire . . . Nothing has really changed since Seneca wrote these words. We still live ‘as if destined to live forever’. We put off things we really want to do until retirement, or we think we can take a break only when we earn a certain amount of money, or we borrow a lot of money to have a big mortgage in a posh suburb—not really contemplating that it ties us to working hard, perhaps in an industry we hate, for another 30-plus years.”
― Brigid Delaney, Reasons Not to Worry: How to Be Stoic in Chaotic Times—A Practical Guide to Stoicism for Self-Improvement and Personal Growth