Life in Width: The Italian Art of Time
“A person has two ways of living time: either in length or in width. Those who live in length count the years, those who live in width fill them with life.” — De Crescenzo
We all dream of more time. More days to spend with the people we love. More chances to try again, to change our minds, to see what else life might hold. And yet, as I sit with aging and grief, I find myself asking: is it really about more years… or is it about how we actually live the ones we already have?
Luciano De Crescenzo, an Italian philosopher who captured both the simplicity and complexity of being human, once said that life can be measured in two ways: in length and in width. When I first heard this, it struck me as the perfect way to describe our obsession with stretching time forward…always planning, always looking ahead, and our neglect of the present. But it also made me realize something else: that extending life is not only about adding days. It’s also about widening them. About giving ourselves chances, do-overs, moments of intensity that break the monotony.
Length is chronological: days that follow one another, routines that become mechanical, years that stack like coins. Sixty years lived only in length will feel like sixty. But width is emotional, textured, alive. It’s falling in love, laughing until your body shakes, daring to start over. It’s tasting water when you’re thirsty and actually noticing its freshness. It’s gathering at the table with family and realizing the miracle of being together. Live this way, and sixty years may feel like thirty, not because you lived less, but because you lived more fully.
De Crescenzo’s gift was to flip the obsession of modern life. We spend so much energy studying how to lengthen life, medicine, technology, strategies for “more years.” But how often do we ask how to widen life? How to live each sip of water, each meal, each laugh with such presence that time itself deepens?
La Dolce Vita is all about presence and appreciation. Not about the perfectly curated picture, but the passionately lived moment, the ones where we forget the shoulds and woulds, and simply enjoy what is.
This is also why I write The CARE Cup. Not to hand out answers, but to hold open space for questions, the kind that widen life if we let them. For me, this journal is a way of practicing larghezza (width): sipping slowly, pausing, lingering just long enough to notice what is already here. It’s my way of stepping outside the fast-paced rhythm of endless tasks and to-do lists, and remembering the sweetness of living in presence.
This journal is not about advice. It’s about embodying the principle of La Dolce Vita in small ways, recreating little Italian moments of pause and wonder so that Italy doesn’t feel so far away. Eternity isn’t measured in years, but in how wide we dare to live the ones we’ve been given.
A Reflection for You
De Crescenzo invites us to live life in width rather than only in length. What does that mean for you?
Where do you notice yourself living only in length — repeating days without depth?
Where in your life do you already feel width — timeless, rich, full moments?
What is one small way you could widen your day today?
Maybe it’s as simple as tasting your morning coffee, lingering at the table, or daring to laugh a little louder. Because eternity isn’t about more years, but about more life inside the years we already have.