The best-spent hour of your life...

Over the years, I've read many books that have influenced and inspired me. Certain passages have had such a profound effect that it would be fair to describe them as life-changing.
Here are some examples:

• The opening paragraphs of Descartes' Meditations
• Sartre's short lecture/essay, Existentialism and Humanism
• The opening chapter of Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
• The chapter where Digory rings the bell in C. S. Lewis's The Magician's Nephew
• Hume's Essay, Treatise and Enquiries (can't single out any particular bits: they're all good)
• Etc.

Today, I have another life-changing work to add to my list: Seneca's essay On the Shortness of Life. A Straits Times reader brought it to my attention recently after reading my Mind Your Body series about growing old. I can't thank him enough.

I've read and re-read Seneca's essay, and will doubtlessly re-read it many more times in the coming years. It's a wonderful, inspiring and challenging work, in which the Stoic philosopher demonstrates just how much of our time we spend existing rather than living.

I'll be exploring his views in an upcoming Mind Your Body series. But anyone who's interested in going straight to the source can check out the full text here: http://www.forumromanum.org/literature/seneca_younger/brev_e.html

It takes less than an hour to read, and might just turn out to be the most wisely-invested hour of your life...