“Putting things off is the biggest waste of life: it snatches away each day as it comes, and denies us the present by promising the future. — Seneca, On the Shortness of Life
Photo by Sabina Kallari on Pexels
Every morning, someone kisses someone goodbye at the door, certain there will be another goodbye tomorrow to trade for it. Most days, they're right. That's exactly the problem.
Seneca called procrastination a kind of theft — not laziness, theft. It doesn't just cost you time. It steals the day you're standing in by handing you a promise instead: I'll say it, finish it, call them. Tomorrow. Maybe.
I don't know if a near miss changes a person forever or only for a while — I've heard both, from people who'd know better than I would. What I do know is we can't touch our past again. Not the wasted afternoons. Not the words left unsaid because surely there'd be another chance to say them.
And the future was never really ours to hold, no matter how carefully we plan around next week, next vacation, next Monday.
We only ever get the present — and it's already becoming the past while we're still deciding whether today is the day.
What are you quietly promising “tomorrow”?
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If this resonated, you might also enjoy: Elizabeth Bishop, On Loss and Waubgeshig Rice, "On Survival