How long should we live?

In one of his Dialogues of the Dead, the Greek satirist Lucian of Samosata presents a conversation in Hades between the Cynic philosopher Menippus and the centaur Chiron, who had voluntarily relinquished his immortality. What, asks Menippus, had made Chiron so fond of death, a thing that most people shun? Was it not very pleasant to be alive and to see the light of day? But Chiron retorts that you can have too much of a good thing:

Although Chiron is so far enjoying the contrasting conditions to be found in the underworld, Menippus sows a doubt in his mind. Won't life here too, he asks, become equally monotonous in the course of time? When Chiron asks anxiously whether there is anything that can be done to avoid this, the philosopher replies that one should do what a sensible man does: “be content and satisfied with one's lot and think no part of it intolerable” (ibid.: 43, 45).