Keep doing what you are doing, Lucilius. Vindicate yourself and be your own master. Reclaim your time. Until now it has been seized by duties and the demands of others, stolen by the claims of friendship and the ordinary press of daily life, or simply allowed to slip away without your noticing. Believe me when I tell you that some moments are torn from us outright, others are quietly lifted while we are distracted, and others drift past before we even realize they were there. The most shameful loss, though, is the loss we bring on ourselves through carelessness and distraction. Look honestly at your own life and you will see: a great part of it has been spent doing harm, a greater part doing nothing at all, and almost the whole of it on activity that looks purposeful but leads nowhere.
Show me a single person who truly values time, who weighs the worth of each day, who understands that he is dying a little more every day. We deceive ourselves when we picture death as something that lies ahead of us. In fact, the greater part of it is already behind us. Every year that has passed already belongs to death.
So do as you tell me you are doing, Lucilius: hold on to every hour. Get a firm grip on today, and you will not have to lean so heavily on tomorrow. While we postpone and make our plans, life runs past us.
Nothing, Lucilius, truly belongs to us except time. Nature has entrusted us with ownership of this one thing, and it is so fragile and fleeting that anyone who wishes can take it from us. How foolish we are. We keep careful accounts for the cheapest, most replaceable goods. We chase down every petty debt. But when it comes to time, this most precious thing, we never once think that we owe anything. Time is the only loan that even the most grateful borrower cannot repay.
You might ask how I am doing, given how freely I preach. I will be honest with you: I am like someone who spends freely but keeps the books. I cannot claim that I waste nothing, but I can tell you what I waste, and how, and why. I know the cause of my poverty in time. My situation is like that of many people reduced to slender means not entirely through their own fault: everyone is ready to excuse them and feel sorry for them, but no one comes to their aid.
Even so, I would not call a person poor if what remains is enough to live contentedly on. But I want you to keep what is yours, and you cannot start too early. It is too late to begin saving when you have reached the bottom of the cask. Whatever remains there is not only very little, but the worst of all that was once contained in it.
Farewell.