Genre and place in the book. One of the best-known aphorisms of the book — and of the whole work. Three beats: (1) not as if ten thousand years; (2) the inevitable hangs over you; (3) while you can, become good. The memory of death turned into urgency.

Μὴ ὡς μύρια ἔτη — not as if ten thousand years. EXERCISEThe memory of death: the illusion of unlimited time defers real living "to later." "Ten thousand years" is the hyperbole of heedlessness; cf. 02-05 — to do each act as if it were the last.

τὸ χρεὼν ἐπήρτηται — the inevitable hangs over you. χρεών is "what is due, the unavoidable" (poetically: death, fate); ἐπήρτηται is "hangs above," as something suspended. Not "someday," but already overhead: there is the spur to action.

ἀγαθὸς γενοῦ — become good. The conclusion is not "hurry to finish your affairs," but "become TERMgood" — the one thing worth doing with a limited span (cf. 04-10: do everything "with being good"). And "ἕως ἔξεστιν" — while it is in your power: EXERCISEwithout postponement (μηκέτι ἀναβολή), now — for the very power (the faculty of judgement) may give out before death (cf. 03-01).

The disciplines. The principal one is action: "become good now" — the imperative of the deed without delay. The secondary is desire: the memory of the inevitable (τὸ χρεών), the acceptance of mortality as the background of action.

Parallels. Not to live as if time were endless — 02-05; 03-10; cf. EXERCISEmeditatio-mortis. To stop deferring, to use the span — Med. 2.4; 10.16; cf. EXERCISEno-more-delay. "To become good" as the one task — 04-10; cf. TERMagathon, virtue-is-sufficient.