Counsels and Maxims | Page 7

of doing the right thing at the moment. It is only when we
come to view our life as a connected whole that our character and
capacities show themselves in their true light; that we see how, in
particular instances, some happy inspiration, as it were, led us to
choose the only true path out of a thousand which might have brought
us to ruin. It was our genius that guided us, a force felt in the affairs of
the intellectual as in those of the world; and working by its defect just
in the same way in regard to evil and disaster.
SECTION 5. Another important element in the wise conduct of life is
to preserve a proper proportion between our thought for the present and
our thought for the future; in order not to spoil the one by paying
over-great attention to the other. Many live too long in the
present--frivolous people, I mean; others, too much in the future, ever
anxious and full of care. It is seldom that a man holds the right balance
between the two extremes. Those who strive and hope and live only in
the future, always looking ahead and impatiently anticipating what is
coming, as something which will make them happy when they get it,
are, in spite of their very clever airs, exactly like those donkeys one
sees in Italy, whose pace may be hurried by fixing a stick on their heads
with a wisp of hay at the end of it; this is always just in front of them,
and they keep on trying to get it. Such people are in a constant state of
illusion as to their whole existence; they go on living _ad interim_,
until at last they die.
Instead, therefore, of always thinking about our plans and anxiously
looking to the future, or of giving ourselves up to regret for the past, we
should never forget that the present is the only reality, the only

certainty; that the future almost always turns out contrary to our
expectations; that the past, too, was very different from what we
suppose it to have been. But the past and the future are, on the whole,
of less consequence than we think. Distance, which makes objects look
small to the outward eye, makes them look big to the eye of thought.
The present alone is true and actual; it is the only time which possesses
full reality, and our existence lies in it exclusively. Therefore we should
always be glad of it, and give it the welcome it deserves, and enjoy
every hour that is bearable by its freedom from pain and annoyance
with a full consciousness of its value. We shall hardly be able to do this
if we make a wry face over the failure of our hopes in the past or over
our anxiety for the future. It is the height of folly to refuse the present
hour of happiness, or wantonly to spoil it by vexation at by-gones or
uneasiness about what is to come. There is a time, of course, for
forethought, nay, even for repentance; but when it is over let us think of
what is past as of something to which we have said farewell, of
necessity subduing our hearts--
[Greek: alla ta men protuchthai easomen achnumenoi per tumhon eni
staethessi philon damasntes hanankae],[1]
and of the future as of that which lies beyond our power, in the lap of
the gods--
[Greek: all aetoi men tauta theon en gounasi keitai.][2]
[Footnote 1: _Iliad_, xix, 65.]
[Footnote 2: _Ibid_, xvii, 514]
But in regard to the present let us remember Seneca's advice, and live
each day as if it were our whole life,--_singulas dies singulas vitas
puta_: let us make it as agreeable as possible, it is the only real time we
have.
Only those evils which are sure to come at a definite date have any
right to disturb us; and how few there are which fulfill this description.
For evils are of two kinds; either they are possible only, at most
probable; or they are inevitable. Even in the case of evils which are
sure to happen, the time at which they will happen is uncertain. A man
who is always preparing for either class of evil will not have a moment
of peace left him. So, if we are not to lose all comfort in life through
the fear of evils, some of which are uncertain in themselves, and others,
in the time at which they will occur, we should look upon the one kind

as never likely to happen, and the other as not likely to happen very
soon.
Now, the less our peace of mind is disturbed by fear, the more likely it
is to be agitated by desire and