March 20
It is not possible to live this day well unless one regards it as one's last.
Fragments (preserved in Stobaeus)
Listening mode
It is not possible to live this day well unless one regards it as one's last.
If you plan a day as though no other would follow it, most of your calendar disappears: the tax return, the dentist appointment, the second lesson of a language course. Almost everything you do quietly counts on a tomorrow.
Even so, it would be hasty to write all of that off as wasted. Some things meant to be continued would not have been for nothing even without the continuation. A word you will never use may have let you listen your way into a foreign language for half an hour. A letter whose reply you will never read has still been written.
It is different with what you endure only because it is supposed to pay off later. An afternoon you count solely as a down payment loses all its value the moment there is no later. Such afternoons can't always be avoided. The rent has to be paid.
The thought of a last day, then, does not so much separate the important from the unimportant. It shows you how much of your time runs on credit.
No single day fully answers that. The dentist appointment is still in the calendar for Thursday, and you will probably go.
