On the Shortness of Life: Adapted for the Contemporary Reader

by James Harris

You squander time as if you had a full and abundant supply, though one day which you waste on some person or thing could be your last. You have all the fears of mortals and all the desires of immortals. You will hear many say: "After my fiftieth year I will retire into leisure, my sixtieth year I will no longer have any public duties" And what guarantee do you have that your life will last longer than this? And who else but yourself will suffer this course, waiting until a fixed time to actually live. Are you not ashamed to reserve for yourself only the remnant of life, and to set apart only that time to devote to yourself? How late it is to begin to live just when we must cease to live! What foolish forgetfulness of mortality to postpone plans to the fiftieth and sixtieth year, and to intend to begin life at a point to which few have attained in good health!

The greatest hindrance to living is expectancy, which depends upon tomorrow and wastes the present. You

And so, however small the amount of it, it is abundantly sufficient, and therefore, whenever his last day shall come, the wise man will not hesitate to go to meet death with a steady step.