At only 5’2”, Ben Ferencz was not an imposing figure. But during the course of his life, he became a giant in the areas of international criminal law, in prosecuting war crimes, and in the quest for world peace. He died earlier this month (4/7/23) in an assisted living facility in Boynton Beach, FL. He was 103.

Ferencz was born in the Transylvania region of Hungary in 1920. A few months after his birth, at the conclusion of World War I, Transylvania was annexed into Romania. His parents fled Romania and the persecution Hungarian Jews faced at the hands of the Romanian government. They  made it to the United States and settled on the lower east side of Manhattan in New York City. After high school, Ferencz attended City College of New York and eventually attended Harvard Law School, where he studied under Sheldon Glueck, who was researching a book on war crimes. His association with Glueck and the war crimes research would have a profound and long-lasting influence on the rest of his life.

After graduating from Harvard in 1943, Ferencz joined the Army and was assigned to Camp Davis in North Carolina as a typist. Ferencz didn’t know how to type or fire a rifle, so he was given the duty of cleaning latrines. With some training, he was eventually assigned to the 115^th AAA Gun Battalion, anti-aircraft artillery unit. He landed on the beach at Normandy, and went on to fight in the fated Battle of the Bulge.

In 1945, near the end of World War II, Ferencz was assigned to the headquarters of General George S. Patton’s Third Army, and was tasked with setting up a war crimes branch. It was in this job that he witnessed firsthand the atrocities committed by the Nazis on Jews and other “undesirables” in the concentration camps of Buchenwald, Mauthausen, and Dachau. Ferencz collected evidence at each of these camps that was later used to convict Nazi war criminals.

Years later, when discussing his experience in the concentration camps, Ferencz said, “Even today, when I close my eyes, I witness a deadly vision I can never forget — the crematoria aglow with the fire of burning flesh, the mounds of emaciated corpses stacked like cordwood waiting to be burned. I had peered into hell.”

After the war, when he left Germany, Ferencz vowed never to return, the memory of what he had seen haunted him so badly. But he had only been back in the states for a few months when the Army reached out to him and asked him to return as a civilian to work on prosecuting war criminals. Big name Nazis like Hermann Goring and Rudolf Hess had already been prosecuted, and Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union left it up to the United States to prosecute the lower ranking war criminals. Ferencz worked under Brig. Gen. Telford Taylor, helping Taylor investigate and prepare cases against Nazi doctors who had experimented on concentration camp inmates, as well as industrialists who availed themselves of slave labor from the camps.

It was during these investigations that Ferencz discovered previously secret documents from the Einsatzgruppen (Action Groups). The Einsatzgruppen were tasked with following the Nazi Army as it invaded the Soviet Union, and kill all the Jews, gypsys, gays, and communists they could find. The reports were detailed documentation of how the Einsatzgruppen had gone from town-to-town rounding up the “undesirables” and executing them. One such document, later labeled exhibit 179 at trial, detailed how, in Kyiv, troops summoned all Jews to present themselves to the Nazis. About 34,000 people responded. The Nazis stripped them of their clothing and took anything of value from them, then spent the next several days executing every single one of them.

As part of the agreement that ended the war, Germany was bifurcated, with Russia having control of the eastern part of the country and the United States having control of the western half. The U.S. wanted to rebuild West Germany, if for no other reason than to have a foothold in Europe that would be a barrier to further expansion by the Russians, who despite being a partner with the U.S. in World War II, had become a Cold War rival. The war crimes trials were dragging on, and were creating friction between the U.S. and West Germany. Taylor was under pressure from his superiors to conclude the trials so the United States and West German could move forward.

The push to conclude the trials angered Ferencz. He had found documents—literal murder receipts—that needed to lead to prosecutions. Yet, the U.S. was seemingly willing to turn a blind eye in order to move forward. Ferencz petitioned Taylor not to allow the murders of millions of innocent people to go unanswered. Taylor sympathized, but the pressure to wrap up the trials was mounting. Finally, he told Ferencz, who had never prosecuted a case in his life, that if he could organize the trials while doing his other duties, he could move forward with the prosecutions. Ferencz had suddenly gone from an investigator to lead prosecutor of Nazi war criminals.

One of the first challenges Ferencz faced was choosing who to prosecute. Based on the documents he had at his disposal, he literally could have charged thousands of former Nazis. There wasn’t enough time or courtroom space to prosecute everyone. Ferencz chose to focus on those that had the highest rank in the Nazi military, as well as the most education.

At trial, Ferencz called no witnesses. Instead, he relied on the treasure trove of Einsatzgruppen reports as his evidence. The defendants claimed simultaneously that the documents were fake and that they were simply exaggerated to impress superiors. When that didn’t work, they argued that they were only following orders.

In the end, all 22 defendants were convicted. Thirteen were sentenced to death, and four were actually put to death by hanging before the United States changed course and stopped the executions.

Ferencz stayed in Germany following the trials, participating in reparation and rehabilitation programs designed to benefit victims of Nazi persecution. He also had a hand in negotiating the Reparations Agreement between Israel and West Germany in 1952 and the German Restitution Law of 1953.

Ferencz and his family returned to the United States in 1956, and he set up a private law practice in New York along with his old boss, Telford Taylor. Among their legal work, Ferencz and Taylor represented Jews who were used as forced labor by German industrialist, Friedrich Flick.

Following the Vietnam War, which he opposed, Ferencz left his private legal practice to push for an international criminal court that would serve as the highest court in the world dealing with crimes against humanity and war crimes. His book, Defining International Aggression: The Search for World Peace, was published in 1975 and made the case for an international criminal court.

From 1985-1996 Ferencz served as a professor of international law at Pace University. During his time at Pace, Ferencz continued to advocate for an international criminal court. He gave speeches and met with lawmakers, but the going was slow. Finally, in 2002, his dream of an international criminal court came to fruition. Surprisingly, it was the United States that was most resistant to the court. Although Pres. George W. Bush signed the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, the agreement that created the court, the treaty was never ratified. To this day, U.S. citizens are excluded from being brought before the court.

Throughout his life, Ferencz was a principled man. He applauded the conviction in the International Criminal Court of Thomas Lubanga Dyilo of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, founder of the Union of Congolese Patriots, who were accused of ethnic massacres, torture, rape, and mutilation. He was also highly critical of the execution of Osama Bin Laden by the United States, which he called “illegal and unwarranted” in a letter he penned to the New York Times. He believed that Bin Laden’s execution undermined democracy and that the captured Bin Laden should have instead been referred to the international criminal court.

If you travel to The Hague, you can walk the Benjamin Ferencz Footpath, which was dedicated in Ferencz’s honor in 2017. In 2018, a documentary entitled Prosecuting Evil was released on Netflix. The film documents Ferencz’s life and details his work on behalf of the international criminal court and world peace.

For his tireless work, Ferencz has received many awards, including the Congressional Gold Medal, the Governor’s Medal of Freedom from the State of Florida, and the Pahl Peace Prize from the Country of Liechtenstein. He has also been interviewed in several documentaries (in addition to Prosecuting Evil), including Ken Burn’s The U.S. and the Holocaust, Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 11/9, and David Wilkenson’s Getting Away with Murder(s).

In 2017, CBS’s 60 Minutes did a profile on Ferencz. That profile was my introduction to the life of Benjamin Ferencz. I have admired his life, his work, and his principles ever since. Here is the 60 Minutes profile. (Click on “Watch on YouTube to see the video.)

An investigation conducted by the nonprofit public interest group, ProPublica, found that for more than two decades, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has accepted gifts totaling millions of dollars from Harlan Crow, a Texas-based billionaire and real estate developer. In addition to accepting the gifts, Thomas failed to report receipt of the gifts on his annual financial disclosure form, a document required of all federal judges.

It gets worse. In 2004, the Los Angeles Times did an investigation into Thomas’ habit of accepting extravagant gifts from donors. Following the story published by the LA Times, Thomas’ annual financial disclosures indicated he had stopped accepting the gifts. But he hadn’t. Instead, he had just stopped reporting them.

The ProPublica story comes in the aftermath of another potential ethical violation committed by Thomas. In 2021, in the wake of the January 6 insurrection, Thomas failed to recuse himself from a case in which his own wife was involved.

Following the revelations from the ProPublica investigation, reactions were all too predictable. Democrats lashed out at Thomas’ behavior, some even calling for his impeachment. Republicans defended Thomas, impugning the motivations of “leftists” rather than actually defending the fact that Thomas had received millions of dollars worth of unreported gifts.

It’s the predictability of these reactions that I want to focus on. As a nation, our politics has become so divided that we no longer can agree on even the most obvious issues. Rather than looking at Thomas’ behavior from a right vs left perspective, I want to look at it from a right vs wrong perspective. It’s not always easy to distinguish right from wrong in politics. But in this case, I think distinguishing between the two is pretty clear-cut and easy.

Let’s start from the premise of what we should expect from a Supreme Court Justice. At a minimum, a Supreme Court Justice should be impartial, or at least as impartial as a human being can be. In the words of Chief Justice John Roberts, a Supreme Court Justice should just call balls and strikes. They should apply the law, not their political leanings or beliefs. They should be above reproach in their personal lives. They should not have any entanglements or personal interests that unduly cloud their judicial judgement or restrict their independence. Not only should they not have dealings that cloud their judgement, they shouldn’t have dealings that give the perception of bias or influence. To be certain, Supreme Court Justices, like anyone else, will live their lives as they see fit, with friends and acquaintances of their own choosing. However, because they are Supreme Court Justices, it is imperative that those relationships not influence—or give the perception of influencing—their legal decisions.

This is the minimum we should expect. After all, these Justices serve on the highest court in the land. Their decisions impact millions of people every day. We, through the Constitution, give Justices of the Supreme Court a tremendous amount of power. We trust them with carrying out one of the most important roles in our society. At least in theory, only the best of the best of the best of the nation’s attorneys ever rise to the level of Supreme Court Justice. It is an honor and a privilege to serve on the Court. Our expectation of those who serve should be high.

Oddly, although other federal judges are bound by an ethical code of conduct, Supreme Court Justices are not. In recent years, there has been a push to implement an ethical code of conduct for the Supreme Court, but the Justices have resisted, while simultaneously paying lip service to the imperative of ethical behavior. Congress has toyed with the idea of implementing an ethical code for the Supreme Court, but to date, they have failed to do so.

Even without a written code of ethics, does Justice Thomas’ behavior rise to the level of what we should expect from a Supreme Court Justice? Forget his politics. Forget his legal philosophies or decisions. Just focus on Justice Thomas’ behavior. Would such behavior be acceptable for the President, a Member of Congress, or a Senator? Would it be acceptable for any political appointee or bureaucrat? Would it be acceptable for your local dog catcher? I think the answer is obvious. We should not countenance the taking of expensive gifts by government officials, whether reported or not, particularly from someone in a position to influence the official’s behavior.

Former federal prosecutor and current President of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), Noah Bookbinder, made this point on Twitter after hearing Justice Thomas’ claim that Harlan Crow is simply a friend, and that he was counseled by his fellow Justices that there was no need to report the gifts:

“Have any of you had a friend pay for a vacation for you? How about a really expensive one? And then do it again? And again? It’s certainly not something that’s happened to me, and I don’t think it happens to regular people in the real world.

“For Justice Thomas to think that this is such a normal occurrence that it was not only okay for him to accept these fully paid vacations again and again, but that he didn’t even have to report it does not pass the smell test. Add to it that this is someone who apparently became a friend after Justice Thomas assumed a position of great influence and power, and it smells even worse.

“Most government employees are scrupulous in reporting gifts, usually much smaller and often from personal friends, as required on personal financial disclosure forms. This explanation does not comport with lived experience for most people in positions of responsibility.

“This shows why there needs to be an enforceable code of conduct for Supreme Court justices. But it is so far beyond what anyone should have thought acceptable that it also requires an investigation.”

I agree with Bookbinder’s thoughts. Justice Thomas’ behavior is so far beyond the pale that it should be obvious to any objective observer that it was wrong, unethical, potentially criminal, and worthy of further investigation. Opinion on the matter should not be determined by political beliefs or party affiliation.

As I said previously, this isn’t a matter of right vs left. It is a matter of right vs wrong. Any Justice, no matter his or her political beliefs or judicial philosophies, should be held to account for this type of behavior. Can’t we at least agree that any Supreme Court Justice or other government official that takes millions of dollars of gifts, particularly from someone in a position to influence their decisions, should be investigated, and if appropriate, punished? Or are we so divided that we can’t even agree on that simple premise?

ADDENDUM: There’s something about this story that I’m afraid I didn’t make clear enough. While it is true that Clarence Thomas didn’t report the gifts he received from billionaire Harlan Crow, the much more important part of the story is that Thomas accepted the gifts in the first place. Accepting the gifts is the unethical (and potentially illegal) action. Not reporting them is just proof of his intent to cover up his unethical (and potentially illegal) behavior.

ADDENDUM 2 — After I first published this post, ProPublica came out with another story detailing how Harlan Crow bought Clarence Thomas’ mother’s home in 2014, remodeled the whole thing, and has allowed Thomas’ mother to remain in the home rent-free ever since. At the same time, Crow bought two empty lots in the neighborhood from Thomas, and the went on to sell off the lots. Just as with the luxury travel Crow gifted Thomas, Thomas failed to report the transaction.

In response to the story, Crow claimed that he purchased the home with plans of turning it into a museum dedicated to telling Thomas’ story of going from a working-class neighborhood in Savannah to the highest court in the nation. Of course, that statement doesn’t explain: 1) why he immediately remodeled the home; 2) why he also bought the vacant lots only to sell them, or; 3) why he has allowed Thomas’ mother to remain in the home without paying rent.

With all of these revelations, and considering that Crow, who sits on the board of the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank that often files amicus briefs with the Supreme Court, it seems clear that Thomas should be investigated by the court, by Congress, or by both. This should not be a partisan issue. Thomas’ ethical lapses and crimes (if any) are against the Court and the people of the United States. All Members of Congress, regardless of their party affiliation, should want to know the details of Thomas’ relationship with Crow. Sadly, while Democrats have called for an investigation, Republicans have been all too happy to dismiss the conservative jurist’s behavior.

ADDENDUM 3 — As you can probably tell, I feel strongly that the revelations in the ProPublica stories should be investigated, but others are calling for impeachment. Mehdi Hasan does a great job of laying out the case for impeachment, and compares it to a similar case against Abe Fortas, a liberal Supreme Court Justice.

It’s sad to say, but mass shootings in the United States have become so common, that it is easy to view them from a distance, to be detached. After all, the shootings happen somewhere else, to someone else. Sure, they’re horrible, but for most of us, they don’t really affect our lives. Until they do.

This past Friday, one person was killed and ten were injured when a gunman opened fire at a house party in Macomb, Illinois. Macomb is the home of Western Illinois University, where I went to college and where I received a Masters degree this past summer. I spent several years in Macomb. I walked the streets of the town. Many of my friends lived there and walked those same streets. To think that a mass shooting took place there is hard to fathom.

I heard about the shooting in Macomb on my way to Nashville. I was going there to watch my son play rugby for the University of Tennessee. I couldn’t help but think about the shooting in Macomb, a college town, and how it related to my son, who lives in Knoxville, the home of Tennessee’s flagship university. Unlike past shootings, this one was hitting close to home.

After my weekend in Nashville, I packed up and headed back to Wisconsin. As I was driving, another mass shooting took place. This one in the town I had just left. It happened at a private elementary school in the Green Hills area of Nashville. Six people were killed, including three children under the age of ten, two teachers, and the assailant. It’s a horrible, terrifying tragedy, and it happened not too far from where my daughter lives and where my son was playing rugby the previous weekend.

The shooting in Nashville was the 129^th mass shooting to happen in the United States since the beginning of the year. One-hundred-twenty-nine mass shootings in less than three full months. Think about that. In the first ninety days of 2023 there have been 129 mass shootings in the United States. Most countries don’t have 129 mass shootings in a decade. Yet, in the United States, we average more than one mass shooting per day.

I’m horrified. In fact, every American should be horrified by the amount of gun violence in this country. Yet, our elected leaders do precious little to try to stop it. It’s easy to blame Republicans, who routinely offer “thoughts and prayers” to the victims and their families, while mindlessly wrapping themselves in the Second Amendment and posing for Christmas cards while holding assault rifles. But I’m old enough to remember when Democrats controlled both the House and Senate and still didn’t pass comprehensive gun reform. There’s plenty of blame to go around.

I don’t claim to have all the answers when it comes to gun reform. What I do know is that our current gun laws have resulted in 129 mass shootings so far this year. It may be true that we can’t completely stop mass shootings, but there are things we can do to reduce the amount of gun violence in the United States and make it harder for those who mean us harm to get the guns they need.

For instance, why don’t we have universal background checks? Ninety percent of Americans support universal background checks, yet Congress can’t seem to muster the political will to get it done.

In the Nashville shooting, the shooter legally purchased seven different guns while being treated for an emotional disorder. Would a background check have stopped the shooter from getting the guns used to kill the innocent children and their teachers? That’s hard to say with any certainty. Even so, the point remains that a universal background check would help keep guns out of the hands of people who shouldn’t have them.

Why do we allow our fellow citizens to purchase assault rifles? In 1994, an assault rifle ban was implemented in the United States. It lasted for ten years before in expired in 2004. During that ten-year period, mass shootings decreased 37% and fatalities from mass shootings fell 70%. After the ban expired, between 2004-2014, mass shootings increased 183%. That’s why two-thirds of all Americans support a permanent ban on the sale of assault weapons.

Other common sense gun reform laws include banning high capacity magazines, passing safe gun storage laws, and creating a gun registry. There is a lot more that can be done to help curb gun violence that falls far short of a complete ban on gun sales (no one is credibly calling for such a ban), and which doesn’t violate the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

We can either push our elected officials to pass meaningful, common sense gun reform, or we can continue to sacrifice our children on the alter of the gun lobby. That is our choice. And we already know what happens when we do nothing.

ADDENDUM: Dr. Jesse Ehrenfeld is the incoming president of the American Medical Association (AMA). Here is what he said in the wake of the mass shooting in Nashville:

“I’m livid. My colleague lost her child in the Nashville shooting. So this is personal... Because thoughts and prayers will NEVER be enough.

“This is not just a tragedy, it’s a public health crisis that has serious societal and economic effects on our health care system, communities, workplaces, schools, law enforcement agencies and courts. According to the CDC, nearly 49,000 Americans died due to firearms in 2021 – a 28-year high – and tens of thousands more were seriously injured, devastating families in small towns and big cities alike. 1/3 of all firearm-related deaths are homicides, almost 2/3 are suicides.

“The AMA has called for efforts to curb firearm violence since the 1980s and has advocated for policies that support extending waiting periods, strengthening background checks, restoring the ban on military-style assault weapons and high-capacity magazines & regulating ghost guns. Congress must earmark appropriations specifically for firearm violence research efforts. Congress must increase funding to CDC and NIH for research into the prevention of firearm-related morbidity and mortality. Congress must take action.”

There’s nothing more important in life than having a loving, mutually supportive relationship with your spouse or significant other. And there’s nothing more important to a successful relationship than learning to communicate with one another.

In this video, you’ll learn the challenges we all face communicating with our loved ones, and you’ll see how successful couples communicate with each other.

Enjoy!

Back in 2021, I compiled a list of the best places to live in the world. The results were a bit surprising, especially considering how relatively poorly the United States scored. The list was based on a combination of how happy the citizens of each country were (based on the World Happiness Report), how free those citizens were (Based on the Human Freedom Index), and the cost of living in each country.

For the period of 2019-2022, Finland was the happiest nation on earth (Finns were also the happiest people on earth from 2016-2019). During that same period, the United States was the 16^th happiest nation. There’s a lot that can be said about why people in Finland are so happy and why people in the United States are, comparatively speaking, so unhappy. Philosophy and psychology researcher Frank Martela, who teaches at Aalto University in Finland, says there are three keys to Finnish happiness.

1. Finns Don’t Compare Themselves to Their Neighbors – Finns live by the motto “Don’t compare or brag about your happiness.” They really take it to heart. They also don’t flaunt their wealth. Most Finns, regardless of how relatively wealthy or poor they are, live very similar lives in very similar homes. In Finland, success isn’t living better than your neighbors. It is living very much like your neighbors.
2. Finns Embrace the Benefits of Nature – Every year, Finns get four weeks of vacation during the summer months, and most spend at least part of that time immersed in nature. Whether hiking, canoeing, or camping, Finns routinely enjoy getting away from the modern conveniences of life to enjoy the outdoors, whether in the countryside or in urban parks. They find that time spent in nature increases their vitality, well-being, and gives them a sense of personal growth. They also fill their homes with greenery to mimic the benefits of being out in nature at times of the year when it is not as easy to get outdoors.
3. Finns Trust Each Other – A “lost wallet” experiment run around the world showed why Finns trust each other so much. In Finland, researchers dropped twelve wallets around Helsinki to see how many would be returned. Of the twelve, eleven were returned to the owner of the wallet. Finns tend to highly value trust and honesty. Relatively small, polite gestures like holding the door for someone or giving up a seat on the bus or train tends to increase the trust that people have in each other. These gestures are common in Finland.

Do these three things sound like the way we live our lives in the United States? If not, maybe we should do something about it.

I’ve had sinus issues for years. Since 1995, I’ve had three sinus surgeries, and I’m pretty sure I’m due for another one. Over the past few months, my sinuses have been all stuffed up, and it’s making me constantly dizzy. Trust me, it’s not much fun.

In December of last year, I called a clinic where I had been treated before to make an appointment. Since I hadn’t been there in almost twenty years, they required that I get a referral from my family doctor. To be clear, my insurance didn’t require the referral. The clinic did.

I called my family doctor and couldn’t get an appointment for three weeks. So for three weeks, I suffered with dizziness that, at times, was debilitating. When I finally saw the doctor at the end of December, he gave me some antibiotics and made a referral to the otolaryngology clinic.

It took a couple of weeks just to make the appointment with the otolaryngologist, and even then, they couldn’t get me in for two months. During my two month wait, the dizziness worsened, and I had to see my family doctor again, who gave me another course of antibiotics, along with a steroid. It didn’t help.

Finally, I get to see the otolaryngologist this week. A couple days ago, I received a packet of information in the mail from the clinic confirming my appointment and letting me know what the cost of the doctor’s visit is going to be. For this appointment that I’ve had to wait three months for, it is going to cost $714.13. Just for the appointment. Not for any treatment. Not for any medication. Just to walk in the door and be examined.

Thankfully, I have pretty good insurance. Even so, my portion of the bill is $568.15. Granted, it’s early in the year and I haven’t met my deductible, but $568.15 for a simple appointment with the doctor? Come on.

To give you an idea of how ridiculously expensive $714.13 is for a single doctor’s appointment, here’s how it compares to a few  items we normally wouldn’t purchase without giving it some thought and looking for the best deal:

• 3-Day Pass to Disney World: $327.00
• XBox Series X: $499.99
• Dell Inspirion Business Laptop: $579.00
• 3-Nights at the Hyatt Place Orlando : $612.00
• Samsung 65″ Crystal Clear Smart TV: $647.99
• 10-sessions with a Personal Trainer: $650.00
• Apple iPhone 13: $679.78
• A Single Doctor’s Appointment: $714.13

In the United States, the average person has less than $400 in savings. That’s a horrendous statistic when you consider that the United States is the wealthiest nation on the planet. This one doctor’s appointment, without any treatment or medication, would wipe out the savings of most Americans. That’s insane. There has to be a better way.

If I lived in almost any other first-world democracy in the world, my taxes would pay for universal healthcare that would cover this doctor’s appointment. One of the criticisms I hear about the healthcare systems in countries with universal healthcare is that it takes too long to get an appointment. That may be true in certain circumstances (for instance, elective surgery), but keep in mind that I’ve had to wait nearly three months for my upcoming appointment, and I had to see my family doctor twice in the interim, once to get the referral and once because my symptoms worsened. Neither of those appointments were free, so add that expense to the $568.15 out-of-pocket cost for my upcoming appointment.

Of course, the biggest criticism of universal healthcare is that it will raise our taxes. This is true, but when you factor in what you’re already paying for health insurance, deductibles, and out-of-pocket expenses, universal healthcare is cheaper.

The more important point to make about universal healthcare is that people can actually afford to take advantage of it. I am eternally grateful that I have the financial wherewithal to pay for my upcoming doctor’s visit. Sadly, not everyone can. So, they live with the often debilitating symptoms of easily treated injuries and illnesses. Their lives are negatively impacted, maybe even shortened, because, even with insurance, they can’t afford to go to the doctor.

It should be a point of shame for Americans that our healthcare system is the most expensive in the world yet has the worst outcomes of any healthcare system among developed countries. At the moment, the United States is the only nation in the developed world not to have some form of universal healthcare, and we join countries like China, Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and a handful of other third-world countries that rely completely on private healthcare, which is another way of saying, everyone fends for themselves when it comes to taking care of their healthcare needs.

It’s time that the USA join the rest of the developed world in offering their citizens universal healthcare. The citizens of the wealthiest nation on earth deserve the best healthcare system in the world.

If you had to choose, would you choose more time or more money? I suspect most people would say they’d choose more time. More time to spend with their loved ones. More time to explore the world. More time to pursue hobbies or passions. More time to learn more, do more, see more. And yet, most of us spend the majority of our time pursuing money. Why is that?

The easy answer is, we need the money that our work provides to live our lives. We have bills to pay and families to support. Any travel plans we might have rely on the money we make from our jobs. For the most part, our hobbies and passions require money to pursue. All of this is true, as far as it goes.

But if we look closer, we find that there’s more to it than that. For many of us, we spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to make more money. Many of us obsess over it. Trust me, I’m not immune to this trait, although I try to be balanced about it. Sure, I’d like to have more money, but not at the expense of my freedom, my happiness, or my peace of mind.

Maybe that’s the important thing: Balance.

I used to work with a guy that sacrificed his present for his future. His focus was on what his life would be like when he retired. He wanted to spend his time golfing, visiting with his kids and his future grandchildren. He wanted to travel with his wife. They made plans. They put money away for future travel. They scrimped and saved. He loved to golf, but only rarely did it, knowing he’d have plenty of time to golf to his heart’s content when he retired. He planned to retire at 60 and then start enjoying the life he desired. He died at 57.

My friend never got to experience the life he dreamed of and planned for. Planning is important, but not at the expense of the present.

Life is short and it doesn’t make sense to sacrifice now for an unguaranteed future. It doesn’t make sense to sacrifice our time—which most of us think is the most important thing—for money. If we do, we’re selling our time—our most important commodity—at an hourly rate. Usually, a pretty cheap hourly rate. And I don’t think any of us wants to do that.

If you’re not familiar with Lucias Seneca, let me tell you a little bit about him. He is known officially as Lucias Annaeus Seneca the Younger. He lived in the time of Jesus Christ (4 BC – 65 AD) and was a stoic philosopher. He wrote primarily about moral issues, and his writings have become central to stoic philosophy and the stoic movement.

In his essay “On the Shortness of Life,” Seneca tackles this idea that life is short. Seneca has a different take. If you’re interested in reading the entire text of Seneca’s essay, you can find it here. For our purposes, I’ll highlight a few passages that will give you a good idea of what Seneca was talking about, and about the challenges we all face when determining how to apportion our time and priorities.

“It is not that we have a short space of time, but that we waste much of it. Life is long enough, and it has been given in sufficiently generous measure to allow the accomplishment of the very greatest things if the whole of it is well invested. But when it is squandered in luxury and carelessness, when it is devoted to no good end, forced at last by the ultimate necessity we perceive that it has passed away before we were aware that it was passing. So it is—the life we receive is not short, but we make it so, nor do we have any lack of it, but are wasteful of it. Just as great and princely wealth is scattered in a moment when it comes into the hands of a bad owner, while wealth however limited, if it is entrusted to a good guardian, increases by use, so our life is amply long for him who orders it properly.

“Why do we complain of Nature? She has shown herself kindly; life, if you know how to use it, is long. But one man is possessed by greed that is insatiable, another by a toilsome devotion to tasks that are useless; one man is besotted with wine, another is paralyzed by sloth; one man is exhausted by an ambition that always hangs upon the decision of others, another, driven on by the greed of the trader, is led over all lands and all seas by the hope of gain; some are tormented by a passion for war and are always either bent upon inflicting danger upon others or concerned about their own; some there are who are worn out by voluntary servitude in a thankless attendance upon the great; many are kept busy either in the pursuit of other men’s fortune or in complaining of their own; many, following no fixed aim, shifting and inconstant and dissatisfied, are plunged by their fickleness into plans that are ever new; some have no fixed principle by which to direct their course, but Fate takes them unawares while they loll and yawn—so surely does it happen that I cannot doubt the truth of that utterance which the greatest of poets delivered with all the seeming of an oracle: “The part of life we really live is small.” For all the rest of existence is not life, but merely time. 

“Think you that I am speaking of the wretches whose evils are admitted? Look at those whose prosperity men flock to behold; they are smothered by their blessings. To how many are riches a burden! From how many do eloquence and the daily straining to display their powers draw forth blood! How many are pale from constant pleasures! To how many does the throng of clients that crowd about them leave no freedom! In short, run through the list of all these men from the lowest to the highest—this man desires an advocate, this one answers the call, that one is on trial, that one defends him, that one gives sentence; no one asserts his claim to himself, everyone is wasted for the sake of another. Ask about the men whose names are known by heart, and you will see that these are the marks that distinguish them: A cultivates B and B cultivates C; no one is his own master. And then certain men show the most senseless indignation—they complain of the insolence of their superiors, because they were too busy to see them when they wished an audience! But can anyone have the hardihood to complain of the pride of another when he himself has no time to attend to himself? After all, no matter who you are, the great man does sometimes look toward you even if his face is insolent, he does sometimes condescend to listen to your words, he permits you to appear at his side; but you never deign to look upon yourself, to give ear to yourself. There is no reason, therefore, to count anyone in debt for such services, seeing that, when you performed them, you had no wish for another’s company, but could not endure your own. 

“Though all the brilliant intellects of the ages were to concentrate upon this one theme, never could they adequately express their wonder at this dense darkness of the human mind. Men do not suffer anyone to seize their estates, and they rush to stones and arms if there is even the slightest dispute about the limit of their lands, yet they allow others to trespass upon their life—nay, they themselves even lead in those who will eventually possess it. No one is to be found who is willing to distribute his money, yet among how many does each one of us distribute his life! In guarding their fortune men are often closefisted, yet, when it comes to the matter of wasting time, in the case of the one thing in which it is right to be miserly, they show themselves most prodigal. And so I should like to lay hold upon someone from the company of older men and say: “I see that you have reached the farthest limit of human life, you are pressing hard upon your hundredth year, or are even beyond it; come now, recall your life and make a reckoning. Consider how much of your time was taken up with a moneylender, how much with a mistress, how much with a patron, how much with a client, how much in wrangling with your wife, how much in punishing your slaves, how much in rushing about the city on social duties. Add the diseases which we have caused by our own acts, add, too, the time that has lain idle and unused; you will see that you have fewer years to your credit than you count. Look back in memory and consider when you ever had a fixed plan, how few days have passed as you had intended, when you were ever at your own disposal, when your face ever wore its natural expression, when your mind was ever unperturbed, what work you have achieved in so long a life, how many have robbed you of life when you were not aware of what you were losing, how much was taken up in useless sorrow, in foolish joy, in greedy desire, in the allurements of society, how little of yourself was left to you; you will perceive that you are dying before your season!” What, then, is the reason of this? You live as if you were destined to live forever, no thought of your frailty ever enters your head, of how much time has already gone by you take no heed. You squander time as if you drew from a full and abundant supply, though all the while that day which you bestow on some person or thing is perhaps your last. You have all the fears of mortals and all the desires of immortals. You will hear many men saying: “After my fiftieth year I shall retire into leisure, my sixtieth year shall release me from public duties.” And what guarantee, pray, have you that your life will last longer? Who will suffer your course to be just as you plan it? Are you not ashamed to reserve for yourself only the remnant of life, and to set apart for wisdom only that time which cannot be devoted to any business? How late it is to begin to live just when we must cease to live! What foolish forgetfulness of mortality to postpone wholesome plans to the fiftieth and sixtieth year, and to intend to begin life at a point to which few have attained! 

“Finally, everybody agrees that no one pursuit can be successfully followed by a man who is preoccupied with many things—eloquence cannot, nor the liberal studies—since the mind, when distracted, takes in nothing very deeply, but rejects everything that is, as it were, crammed into it. There is nothing the busy man is less busied with than living: there is nothing that is harder to learn. Of the other arts there are many teachers everywhere; some of them we have seen that mere boys have mastered so thoroughly that they could even play the master. It takes the whole of life to learn how to live, and—what will perhaps make you wonder more—it takes the whole of life to learn how to die. Many very great men, having laid aside all their encumbrances, having renounced riches, business, and pleasures, have made it their one aim up to the very end of life to know how to live; yet the greater number of them have departed from life confessing that they did not yet know—still less do those others know. Believe me, it takes a great man and one who has risen far above human weaknesses not to allow any of his time to be filched from him, and it follows that the life of such a man is very long because he has devoted wholly to himself whatever time he has had. None of it lay neglected and idle; none of it was under the control of another, for, guarding it most grudgingly, he found nothing that was worthy to be taken in exchange for his time. And so that man had time enough, but those who have been robbed of much of their life by the public, have necessarily had too little of it. 

“Can anything be sillier than the point of view of certain people—I mean those who boast of their foresight? They keep themselves very busily engaged in order that they may be able to live better; they spend life in making ready to live! They form their purposes with a view to the distant future; yet postponement is the greatest waste of life; it deprives them of each day as it comes, it snatches from them the present by promising something hereafter. The greatest hindrance to living is expectancy, which depends upon the morrow and wastes to-day. You dispose of that which lies in the hands of Fortune, you let go that which lies in your own. Whither do you look? At what goal do you aim? All things that are still to come lie in uncertainty; live straightway! 

“Life is divided into three periods—that which has been, that which is, that which will be. Of these the present time is short, the future is doubtful, the past is certain. For the last is the one over which Fortune has lost control, is the one which cannot be brought back under any man’s power. But men who are engrossed lose this; for they have no time to look back upon the past, and even if they should have, it is not pleasant to recall something they must view with regret. They are, therefore, unwilling to direct their thoughts backward to ill-spent hours, and those whose vices become obvious if they review the past, even the vices which were disguised under some allurement of momentary pleasure, do not have the courage to revert to those hours. No one willingly turns his thought back to the past, unless all his acts have been submitted to the censorship of his conscience, which is never deceived; he who has ambitiously coveted, proudly scorned, recklessly conquered, treacherously betrayed, greedily seized, or lavishly squandered, must needs fear his own memory. And yet this is the part of our time that is sacred and set apart, put beyond the reach of all human mishaps, and removed from the dominion of Fortune, the part which is disquieted by no want, by no fear, by no attacks of disease; this can neither be troubled nor be snatched away—it is an everlasting and unanxious possession. The present offers only one day at a time, and each by minutes; but all the days of past time will appear when you bid them, they will suffer you to behold them and keep them at your will—a thing which those who are engrossed have no time to do. The mind that is untroubled and tranquil has the power to roam into all the parts of its life; but the minds of the engrossed, just as if weighted by a yoke, cannot turn and look behind. And so their life vanishes into an abyss; and as it does no good, no matter how much water you pour into a vessel, if there is no bottom to receive and hold it, so with time—it makes no difference how much is given; if there is nothing for it to settle upon, it passes out through the chinks and holes of the mind. Present time is very brief, so brief, indeed, that to some there seems to be none; for it is always in motion, it ever flows and hurries on; it ceases to be before it has come, and can no more brook delay than the firmament or the stars, whose ever unresting movement never lets them abide in the same track. The engrossed, therefore, are concerned with present time alone, and it is so brief that it cannot be grasped, and even this is filched away from them, distracted as they are among many things. 

“Decrepit old men beg in their prayers for the addition of a few more years; they pretend that they are younger than they are; they comfort themselves with a falsehood, and are as pleased to deceive themselves as if they deceived Fate at the same time. But when at last some infirmity has reminded them of their mortality, in what terror do they die, feeling that they are being dragged out of life, and not merely leaving it. They cry out that they have been fools, because they have not really lived, and that they will live henceforth in leisure if only they escape from this illness; then at last they reflect how uselessly they have striven for things which they did not enjoy, and how all their toil has gone for nothing. But for those whose life is passed remote from all business, why should it not be ample? None of it is assigned to another, none of it is scattered in this direction and that, none of it is committed to Fortune, none of it perishes from neglect, none is subtracted by wasteful giving, none of it is unused; the whole of it, so to speak, yields income. And so, however small the amount of it, it is abundantly sufficient, and therefore, whenever his last day shall come, the wise man will not hesitate to go to meet death with steady step. 

“The condition of all who are preoccupied is wretched, but most wretched is the condition of those who labour at preoccupations that are not even their own, who regulate their sleep by that of another, their walk by the pace of another, who are under orders in case of the freest things in the world—loving and hating. If these wish to know how short their life is, let them reflect how small a part of it is their own. 

“It’s not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it.”