“Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend, / Before we too into the Dust descend”Omar Khayyam · Rubaiate · 1120 · catrenul 24
Life is an account that empties anyway: postponed joys are money lost.
Life is treated as a budget: there is a remaining sum, and the dust — death and decay — is everyone's certain destination. The logic convinces because it needs no faith: whatever you believe about afterwards, present time is the only currency you can spend. Whoever postpones joys for an old age that may not arrive healthy loses money from an account that empties anyway.
Khayyam does not say live carelessly; he says live with honest accounting. If life is a budget, then postponement is a hidden expense: you pay with days you never get back. A familiar case: someone saves an expensive wine for a special occasion and finds it turned to vinegar years later. The joy was not merely delayed but destroyed by the waiting. That reframes the question: not whether you deserve to enjoy, but what waiting costs. And waiting always charges a price, drawn from a stock that keeps melting.
Why it matters An antidote to over-saving life: some joys cannot be postponed without being lost.