💀 Dying Every Day
The Dying Every Day series delivers guided meditations on the art of living. Each meditation provides a quote, a selected passage (from an original Stoic text), and a reflection prompt to consider. These meditations are designed to help you (and me) reflect on what it means to live a good life.
Reasons Not to Worry
“Caretake this moment. Immerse yourself in its particulars. Respond to this person or that person, this challenge, this deed. Quit the evasions. Stop giving yourself needless trouble. It is time to really live; to fully inhabit the situation you happen to be in right now.” — Epictetus
Selected Passage
In this week’s meditation, we explore the nature of worrying through a selected passage from Seneca.
There are more things, Lucilius, likely to frighten us than there are to crush us; we suffer more often in imagination than in reality. … What I advise you to do is not to be unhappy before the crisis comes since it may be that the dangers before which you paled as if they were threatening you will never come upon you; they certainly have not yet come.
Accordingly, some things torment us more than they ought; some torment us before they ought; and some torment us when they ought not to torment us at all. We are in the habit of exaggerating, imagining, or anticipating sorrow.
Let us, then, look carefully into the matter. Some troubles will likely befall us, but it is not a present fact. How often has the unexpected happened? How frequently has the expected never come to pass? And even though it is ordained to be, what does it avail to run out to meet your suffering? When it arrives, you will suffer soon enough, so look forward to better things. […]
+ Adapted from On Groundless Fears
Reflection Exercise
Consider reflecting on emotions like anxiety, fear, and worry. How often do you experience these emotions? It’s natural for us to ‘worry’ at times, but it’s also important to remember that, thankfully, many of our worries don’t actually happen. Seneca observes that our minds tend to create worries when there are no signs that point to anything to worry about.
Journaling Prompt
The next time you experience worrying, consider asking, “What are the reasons not to worry?” What role does ‘worrying’ serve once you’ve taken the actions within your control to prepare?
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Thank you for reading; I hope you found something useful.
Until next time, be wise and be well,
J.W.
P.S. New here? Catch up on previous volumes in the archive!