In this short treatise, Plotinus takes up the question of whether the length of one’s life has an effect on one’s happiness. Plotinus is in substantial agreement with the Stoics that happy people are not happier if they live longer. But his explanation for this is sharply different from that of the Stoics and distinctively Platonic. Plotinus argues that the life of Intellect is eternal or outside of time. Accordingly, participation in this life makes temporality irrelevant to happiness.
§1. Happiness is always in the present, not the past or future.
§2. This is so even if our activity is always future-oriented.
§3. Increase in the time spent contemplating does not increase happiness.
§4. Increase in pleasure does not increase happiness.
§5. Comparisons of periods of happiness in different lives are illicit.
§6. Unhappiness may increase in time, but not happiness.
§7. Happiness transcends time.
§§8–9. Memory of previous happiness or of pleasure does not add to happiness.
§10. Virtuous deeds are the result, not the cause of inner happiness.