Stop fearing the damn future!
Seneca’s timeless wisdom: life feels short not because time is scarce, but because we waste it fearing the future, ghosting the present, burying the past, & ultimately, missing the only life we have!
I’ve already had two glasses of red wine before typing the first word, but darlins, I’m starting to think Seneca was onto something.
Picture the scene … it’s Rome, first century AD, and the emperor Nero (yup, that one) is practising his violin (yeah, should be fiddle, but fiddle, violin … same thing, aren’t they?), the city is smouldering, and somewhere in the chaos Seneca the Younger (4 BCE – 65 CE), Nero’s tutor, advisor, and unwilling accomplice, is pacing his villa, scribbling letters about the brevity of life.
This wasn’t a man writing in calm retirement like some smug philosopher in a countryside garden. No. This was a man under political threat, drowning in contradictions, and desperately trying to wring wisdom out of a world gone mad.
And what does he leave us? One of his best shots, that’s what:
“Life is very short and anxious for those who forget the past, neglect the present, and fear the future.”
There it is. A whole philosophy in a single sentence. Shorter than a tweet. Stronger than an espresso martini.
But it’s not simply philosophy. Oh no! That quote my friends is a survival manual from a man who knew his emperor might order his death any day (spoiler: Nero eventually did), trying to make sense of how to live when time feels like a burning fuse.
Seneca didn’t need hashtags, though if he lived today, he’d probably have been the patron saint of #Mindfulness and #YOLO. Except instead of YOLO being an excuse for tequila shots, he’d mean it like a goddamn battle cry against wasting your existence.
And if you’ll indulge me (and pour yourself something, because drinking alone is tragic but drinking with dead philosophers is noble), let’s unravel Seneca’s words until they’re as smooth as an aged scotch … or at least until I can still see straight.
How we botch time
The crux of the matter is that humans absolutely and undeniably suck at time!
We don’t live in it.
We outsource it. We bargain with it. We hoard it like dragon gold and then squander it on YouTube shorts.
Seneca wasn’t looking at TikTok, but he saw the same disease:
Forgetting the past: We either obsess over it like ex-lovers scrolling old Instagram photos at 2am, or ignore it, treating history as irrelevant and like it didn’t happen, as though our mistakes (or our civilization’s mistakes) don’t echo. Both, darlings, are equally dumb!
Neglecting the present: We literally ghost our own lives. Abandoning the only moment we truly own and treating it like background noise while scrolling TikTok about productivity hacks.
Fearing the future: We live in permanent pre-trauma, as if worrying itself could protect us from the Zombie apocalypse, the next market crash, or the awkward family Christmas we still haven’t escaped yet.
Seneca’s diagnosis is brutal: do all three, and your life will feel short! Not because time is objectively scarce, but because we carve it into thin slices, throw half away, and then wonder where the cake went!
This is the Stoic diagnosis. Seneca isn’t saying ‘time flies’, he’s saying we sabotage ourselves. And damn it, he’s right. I mean, we’re worse than the Romans, at least they had gladiatorial games to distract them; we just have push notifications.
Let’s break this down like my bar tab
Alright, topping up the glass. (Third? Fourth? Who’s counting. Seneca wouldn’t approve. He’d tell me temperance is a virtue. But he also said anger is worse than wine, so I’m choosing the lesser vice.)
Now the thing is, Seneca’s quote is basically a time-management manifesto disguised as ancient wisdom.
And it hits harder the drunker you get.
Why? Because booze makes you acutely aware of time slipping. The bottle gets lighter, the night gets shorter, and suddenly it’s 2am and you’re promising yourself you’ll be a better person tomorrow.
Forgetting the past
The past is your receipt. Seneca didn’t mean obsess over it like a broken record, but he did mean you’d better glance at it before you pay. In other words, don’t lose the lessons. If you ignore history (your own or humanity’s), you’re doomed to end up like the guy who keeps blacking out after five vodka sodas insisting: “No, this time I’ll be fine.”
In philosophy, the past is memory. It’s how we anchor meaning. To sever yourself from it is like amputating your own story.
Seneca warns us not to forget, but also not to live there, because obsessive regret is just as destructive as amnesia. Your screw-ups are vintage lessons. Just don’t cork them and throw them in the cellar.
Remember, the past should be sipped like an old wine, enough to taste, but not enough to drown.
Neglecting the present
Here’s the cruel joke: the present is all we’ve got, but it’s the one part of time we treat like scrap metal. We multitask it, scroll it, doomscroll it.
Seneca puts it like this in On the Shortness of Life (49 CE):
“Most people complain about not having enough time, but then throw away hours like trash. They act like immortals while living like they’re already dead.”
Imagine the bartender setting down your drink; it’s cold, it’s perfect, and it’s right there in front of you.
But instead of picking it up and savouring it as it hits every one of your senses, you let it sweat on the counter, the ice melting, the flavours dissipating. And why? Because you’re too busy checking your phone or worrying about tomorrow’s hangover. Madness.
Seneca says neglect here is not passive, it’s sabotage. You’re rich in moments, but you leave your fortune unspent. Madness.
Fearing the future
The future is a foggy tavern down the road. You don’t know what’s inside until you walk through the door.
But we sit outside fearful and panicking about whether the ale will be sour, the crowd unfriendly, the chairs uncomfortable.
All of us pre-live disasters that haven’t happened yet. We give the future all the anxiety rent money, and then we arrive to find it wasn’t even that expensive.
Seneca’s point is that fear doesn’t change the tavern, it only ruins the walk. And that, my friends, is counterproductive.
The Stoic twist is that the future isn’t your business yet. All you can control is how you step into it.
Seneca’s life as proof
Now, Seneca wasn’t some detached monk preaching from a mountaintop. No, he was knee-deep in politics, power, and peril. His life makes his philosophy less abstract theory and more a battle-tested survival strategy.
Exile: Seneca was banished to Corsica for alleged adultery with Emperor Caligula’s sister. Eight years of isolation. He could’ve wallowed, I mean who hasn’t done that when things goes wrong, but not Seneca, instead he wrote about resilience. Past as teacher, not prison.
Wealth: He was one of the richest men in Rome, despite Stoic ideals of simplicity. Hypocritical? Sure. But he argued that wealth wasn’t evil, only attachment to it was. Present comfort didn’t negate philosophical discipline.
Nero: As Nero’s tutor, Seneca tried to guide him toward virtue. When Nero turned into a tyrant, Seneca retired. When suspicion fell on him in a conspiracy, Nero ordered him to take his own life. And he did, calmly, in the stoic way he preached, as though death itself was just another moment to meet without fear.
This wasn’t armchair philosophy. It was a man dodging daggers, living under dictators, writing about serenity in a world that gave him every reason to panic.
If Seneca could say “don’t fear the future” with that future hanging over his head? We can probably stop stressing about unread emails!
Why Seneca was a hypocrite … and so are we!
Let’s not sanctify Seneca too much here … his wisdom was undeniable, but he was also inconsistent.
Because Seneca, for all his stoic preaching, lived with some serious contradictions.
He advised detachment from wealth … while being one of the richest men in Rome.
He warned against fearing the future … while writing letters about his own fear of Nero’s wrath.
He told us not to neglect the present … while spending years in exile plotting political moves.
So, yes, the man was brilliant, but he was also human.
Seneca didn’t embody the Stoic ideal 24/7. Which is exactly why it resonates … neither will you, and neither will I (especially after this third, or is it fourth (?) glass).
The thing is, it’s not about perfection, it’s never about perfection … it’s about practice!
Time is the one thing we can never master, we can only practice.
We have to learn to wrestle with it every day, catching ourselves as we drift into past regrets or future fears, and dragging ourselves … sometimes kicking and screaming … back into the present. And remembering, to savour that ‘perfect’ drink and anticipate without dread. To fail and try again. To drink and forget and then remember, slightly drunker, that you meant to live better.
Perfection is a fantasy. Progress is the real Stoic game.
Drink the damn moment
At the end of the day, Seneca’s not giving us a Hallmark card, he’s giving us a weapon.
Remember the past like good whisky: potent, warming, but in moderation.
Drink the present like beer: simple, refreshing, immediate.
Approach the future like wine: patient, curious, maturing, worth the wait, not worth the panic.
Forget this, and yes, life will feel short, frantic, and joyless. But follow it, even imperfectly, and suddenly life stretches out. Time slows. Anxiety loosens. You realise you’re not running out of moments, you’re swimming in them, if only you’d stop spilling the glass.
Because when your time’s up, and Seneca knew better than anyone it can be called any day, you won’t regret drinking too deeply of the moment. You’ll regret ghosting it.
So, my friends, here’s my toast, to Seneca and to you:
Stop fearing the future. Stop ghosting the present. Stop burying the past.
Drink the damn moment.
Cheers. 🍷