Every Day Is a Whole New Life, Writers and Other Humans

Dogs Are Smarter Than People: Writing Life, Marriage and Motivation

So, recently, Vitaliy Katsenelson, CFA, who is a writer and investor had a Substack post that really resonated with me.

And by recently, I mean yesterday.

Anyway, in it Vitaliy said that “Each Day Is a Separate Life.”

You wake up and you are born. You go to sleep and that’s the end of the day/life. You get it, right?

This concept isn’t new. It comes from Seneca, this ancient philosopher and thinker in the Roman Empire, 2,000 years ago, who was rather hyper focused on thinking about wealth even though he was one of the richest people of his time. And who knows? Seneca probably took it from someone else.

Seneca was a thinker and a clerk and a politician and a writer. So, like a lot of us, he did a lot of things.

What matters to us on the podcast today is what Vitaliy took away from Seneca’s writings and that’s the concept of time.

He writes,

“After reading Seneca, it is impossible not to want to retake control of the most important, irreplaceable gift you are given as a birthright – time. But how do you do this? I borrowed my practical solution from Seneca: ‘Begin at once to live and count each separate day as a separate life.’ “‘Each separate day as a separate life.’ What a brilliant idea. A life bookended by sunrise and sunset. A day is a perfect, meaningful measuring unit. I can look at each day and evaluate how I spent it. If I achieve mostly perfect days, then they’ll spill into a perfect life. ”Every January most of us set New Year’s resolutions. Though we don’t think about it that way, we really treat each year as Seneca’s separate life. Except that a year is so long that we forget about our New Year’s resolutions by March.

We writers (and other humans) waste a lot of time thinking about writing, procrastinating about writing, and doing things like cruising social media, that don’t help us actually write.

We only have a limited amount of time in each day. We waste a lot of it. “What man can you show me who places any value on his time, who reckons the worth of each day, who understands that he is dying daily? For we are mistaken when we look forward to death; the major portion of death has already passed. Whatever years lie behind us are in death’s hands,” Seneca wrote. His advice according to Vitaliy, “Hold every hour in your grasp. Lay hold of today’s task, and you will not need to depend so much upon tomorrow’s. While we are postponing, life speeds by.” Think of each day that you write as a new life as a writer. If you spend that day, not writing, what does that mean? If this was your final day would you want to create? Would you want to share stories? Or would spend that last day arguing with other people in town about curb cuts and bad parking jobs?

As Vitaliy writes, “The goal is not to change our activities but to change our state of mind as we carry out those activities. You don’t want to stop thinking about or planning for tomorrow; instead, as you think about tomorrow, remember to appreciate today. Or as Seneca puts it, ‘Hurry up and live.’” Try it for a week maybe. Just one week commit to a couple of things:

1. Live the day like it’s your last
2. Wake up in the morning thinking about what matters to you.
3. Write something or create something on each day. It doesn’t need to be finished. It doesn’t need to be perfect.

A lot of people ask me (Carrie) how I produce so much. How much? I’ve written over a million words for our daily newspaper this year. And that’s just our newspaper, right? Well, secret number one is that I have a Shaun. But secret number two is that I expect to never have enough time to get all I want to get done out there.

Prince was a little like this too, but um, much more genius.

But try it for a hot second—or a week. It’s the opposite of the slow it down and chill movement.

Vitaliy mentions having a daily journal so that you can “examine our ‘separate life’ at the end of each day.”

He writes, '“Reviewing your day presents an opportunity to learn from your mistakes and correct them. For instance, today I debated politics with a friend for an hour. As I look at that hour, the time was completely wasted, and I won’t get it back.”

That journaling can really help you think about what matters and how you spend your time. It’s a mindful moment. So, just think, maybe, about what you want your life (your days) to be about.

DOG TIP FOR LIFE

Routines can sometimes be the epitome of their lives. Make each day your best day. Get the cat food can. Take your walk. Look forward to all the things!

RANDOM THOUGHT LINK

Link to that AP article

PLACES TO SUBMIT THIS DECEMBER! THE DRABBLE HARVEST CONTEST

[1 October 2024 through 31 December 2024]

A "drabble" is defined as a short story containing exactly precisely no more and no fewer than 100 words. It has a title, which can be from 1 to 15 words-- but no more than 15. That's a drabble.

You have to count each word. Hyphenated words, such as tete-a-tete, count as one word. Don't use your word count tool to count the words, because that tool will count an ellipsis ( . . . ) as three words, which really should not be counted at all. It will also count dashes ( - ) as words, which is wrong. So count each word by sight, not by tool.

Our drabble contests have themes. For each contest, we will simply throw the theme out there. Whatever the theme inspires you to write, that's what you write.​

The theme of this contest is:

Hunting with the Wolves

This contest is open from 1 October 2024 through 31 December 2024. You have two months to write 100 words. Easy!

Ah, but once you have written them, where do you send them? You send them to the contest editor, Terrie Leigh Relf, at tlrelf at gmail dot com. You'll have to combine that address--sorry, but we don't want her to be spammed. Send your submission in the body of the e-mail, please. If you want anything italicized, please indicate by * before and after the word[s] to be italicized.

Pay for drabbles is 1 cent a word, which means one dollar per drabble. Pay for First Place is $5.00, and pay for Second Place is $2.00.

SUBSTACK ITSELF

According to Curiosity Never Killed The Writer, “Substack runs a monthly short story competition. Its mission is to “revive the art of the short story, support artists, and produce something wonderful.” Genre: Short story. Length: 6,000-10,000 words. Prize: $100 plus 50% of subscription revenue to be sent by Paypal, Zelle, or check. Deadline: December 31, 2024. Reprints are ok so long as you still have the rights to distribute.”

SHOUT OUT!

The music we’ve clipped and shortened in this podcast is awesome and is made available through the Creative Commons License.

Here’s a link to that and the artist’s website. Who is this artist and what is this song? It’s “Summer Spliff” by Broke For Free.

WE HAVE EXTRA CONTENT ALL ABOUT LIVING HAPPY OVER HERE! It's pretty awesome.

We have a podcast, LOVING THE STRANGE, which we stream biweekly live on Carrie’s Facebook and Twitter and YouTube on Fridays. Her Facebook and Twitter handles are all carriejonesbooks or carriejonesbook. But she also has extra cool content focused on writing tips here.

Carrie is reading one of her raw poems every once in awhile on CARRIE DOES POEMS. And there you go! Whew! That's a lot!

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