The Stoic Edge in 30 Posts

Post #15: Don't Suffer in Imagination

One of my all-time favorite Stoic quotes is from Seneca:

"We are often more frightened than hurt, and we suffer more in imagination than in reality."

This has been true for thousands of years, of course. But it seems more acute now than ever before. The levels of anxiety among kids, teens and adults of all ages is off the charts. The reason for this (no surprise) is the advent of the smartphone and the rise of social media. We are overwhelmed with information, inundated with negativity and subject to anonymous comments that can be devastating.

It's a mean, mean world online.

So we've created a ton of anxiety that is linked more to fear than anything else. We strive to put a great image forward, knowing that it's not real. We wonder how others will react, and whether we will be shunned or shamed for our opinions. There is a high-level of anticipation that things are going to go badly wrong, and the news media provides a steady drumbeat of evidence that bad things are happening everywhere, all the time. Why won't I be next?

The anxiety of anticipation is particularly damaging, for it requires that you suffer twice -- in the time you are worrying about it, and then when it comes to pass. And what if it never comes to pass? Then you've suffered for nothing.

We all suffer at times for nothing. But you don't have to. The Stoics believed that understanding what is and is not in your control can give you peace, by releasing the pressure to change or affect the way others perceive you. You have the power to let go, to not be prisoner to your irrational mind.

As Marcus Aurelius put it:

"Today I escaped anxiety. Or no, I discarded it, because it was within me, in my own perceptions. Not outside."

So discard anxiety that it out of your control. Focus on the good things you offer and know that no amount of worrying will make anything better in the end.