Just a few more years we tell ourselves. Just until I make enough money. After I make rank. Almost there. 

These are the lies we tell ourselves, the rationales for why we’re doing the thing we hate or being the kind of person we’d rather not be. Seneca did this. He took what was probably supposed to be a short gig tutoring a young prince—because it would end his exile—and ended up, years later, still in Nero’s service. Time and time again, he must have told himself, “I’ll get out soon. Just let me get the boy on firmer footing. Just let me get through this consulship.”

He was telling the lie that the brilliant comedian and writer Pete Holmes talked about on Daily Stoic’s podcast recently. He called it the lie of the “One Last Job.” It’s the lie that bank robbers tell themselves, just as comedians or musicians do—one more tour, one more album, then I’ll slow down. But it never happens. It can’t happen. 

Seneca was never able to get out, never able to get free. He tried to give Nero his fortune back, but it didn’t work. Only with death was he free—free from the addiction to power, the addiction to doing, the fantasy of one last job. 

You could leave life right now, Marcus Aurelius reminds us. We have to let that determine what we do and say and the jobs we take. Life is too short to be or do things you know aren’t right, that you know you’re not meant to do. Don’t put it off. Don’t lie to yourself. It will never happen… unless you pull the trigger right now.

P.S. This was originally sent on September 22, 2020. Sign up today for the Daily Stoic’s email and get our popular free 7-day course on Stoicism.