No man loses any other life than this

Commentary on Meditations 2.14

In 2.14, the Stoic Roman emperor meditates on time and reminds himself to live well while he can.

2.14

Even if you should live three thousand years, and even ten thousand years, still remember that no man loses any other life than this which he now lives, nor lives any other than this which he now loses.

The longest and the shortest are thus brought to the same.

For the present is the same to all, though that which perishes is not the same; and so that which is lost appears to be a mere moment.

For a man cannot lose the past or the future: for what a man doesn’t have cannot be taken away from him.

These two things you must bear in mind; the one, that all things from eternity are of like forms and reoccur in a cycle, and that it makes no difference whether a man shall see the same things during a hundred years or two hundred, or an infinite time; and the second, that the one who lives the longest and he who will die soon lose the same thing.

For the present is the only thing of which a man can be deprived, if it is true that this is the only thing which he has, and that a man cannot lose what he does not have.