Live while you are alive
But even “more idiotic” (to use Seneca’s unambiguous language) than keeping ourselves busy is indulging the vice of procrastination — not the productivity-related kind, but the existential kind – that limiting longing for certainty and guarantees, which causes us to obsessively plan and chronically put off pursuing our greatest aspirations and living our greatest truths …
Seneca was particularly skeptical of the double-edged sword of achievement and ambition, which cause us to steep in our cesspool of insecurity, dissatisfaction, and clinging. It is inevitable that life will be not only very short but very miserable for those who acquire by great toil what they must keep by greater toil. They achieve …
“You are living as if destined to live for ever; 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 the very day which you are devoting to somebody or something may …
Eight years ago, Silicon Valley billionaire Vinod Khosla spent $32.5 million on an 89-acre property with prime beachfront in San Mateo County. Khosla then proceeded to padlock the gate that leads to the beach. His goal: to keep the public off his sand. The only problem: California law guarantees public access to California beachfront. Khosla’s …
In a modern capitalist economy such as our own, businesses and the finance sector are crucial to society’s success. We depend on businesses, banks and investment firms to safeguard our savings, help struggling companies, and in most cases, employ us. I’m generally averse to vehement anti-business and anti-finance sentiment. Many businessmen and bankers may be …
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