Welcome to the Sports Motivation podcast. It's your host, Nees Showbo. Today is Books and Bars. I'm going to be breaking down a book today, a very powerful book, and it's called On the Shortness of Life by Seneca. Seneca is probably the most well-known stoic philosopher. His books are very, very widely read. He is extremely

practical, and I love breaking down his book. I love rereading his books. And if you don't

have at least one or two books from Seneca in your library, you're truly missing out.

All right?

So I have broken down, I want to say maybe one or two from this book before, but I have

not broke down this excerpt.

And I want to break it down right now because as I was reading it, this was one that

popped in my mind.

I said, I have to share this with people

because of how deep it is. So check it out. He says this. It is generally agreed that no activity

can be successfully pursued by an individual who is preoccupied. Since the mind, when distracted,

absorbs nothing deeply, but rejects everything which is, so to speak,

crammed into it. So let's break that down. So he's saying, wouldn't you agree that no

activity can really be successfully pursued if someone is always preoccupied or distracted?

Because Seneca is saying the mind, when it's distracted, absorbs nothing deeply.

So when you're distracted, you're not really learning on a deep level.

You're not in that alpha-theta brainwave state where you're really absorbing information.

You are distracted.

He says, living is the least important activity of the preoccupied man.

Yet there is nothing which is harder to learn. So he's saying, for those who are distracted, by the way, this is 98% of people.

So he says, for the 98% living is the least important activity. But he says, listen, this is

actually the hardest thing to learn. Then he goes on. There are many instructors in the other arts to

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