Procrastination

     I want to begin by apologizing for the time that has elapsed since my last post; sadly, I have been guilty of procrastination. Like most lawyers in the USA, I need to earn mandatory continuing legal education credits to keep my law license. And, like many attorneys, I have put off earning the necessary hours until the reporting period is almost over. So this task will occupy much of the time that I am not working or sleeping for the next several weeks.
     It should not be surprising to readers of this blog that Seneca warned about the dangers of procrastination. In his treatise On The Shortness Of Life, he says --
          "Hear the cry of the greatest of poets [Virgil], who sings his salutary song as if inspired with divine utterance: Each finest day of life for wretched mortals is ever the first to flee. 'Why are you holding back?' he says. 'Why are you slow to action? If you don't seize the day, it slips away.' Even when you've seized it, it will still slip away; and so you must compete with time's quickness in the speed with which you use it, and you must drink swiftly as if from a fast-moving torrent that will not always flow. This too the poet very aptly says in chastising interminable procrastination: not each best 'age' but east best 'day.' Carefree and unconcerned even though time flies so quickly, why do you project for yourself months and years in long sequence, to whatever extent your greed sees fit? The poet is speaking to you about the day -- about this very day which is slipping away. So can there be any doubt that each finest day is ever the first to flee for wretched mortals -- that is, the preoccupied? Old age takes their still childish minds unawares, and they meet it unprepared and unarmed; for they've made no provision for it. Suddenly, unsuspecting, they've stumbled upon it, without noticing that it was drawing nearer every day. Just as conversation or reading or some deep reflection beguiles travelers and they find that they've reached their destination before being aware of approaching it, so with this ceaseless and extremely rapid journey of life, which we make at the same pace whether awake or sleeping: the preoccupied become aware of it only at its end."
     The fact that I have just celebrated the 19th anniversary of my 39th birthday should make me even more aware of the dangers of procrastination -- for if I am too preoccupied, old age will sneak up on me.   
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     Seneca, On The Shortness Of Life, translated by Gareth D. Williams, in Hardship & Happiness (University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, 2014) Book 9, 2-5, page 119.