Verba Diei XII

"We suffer more often in imagination than in reality." - Seneca the Younger, Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Letters from a Stoic), Letter XIII

Fear has a vivid imagination.

We rehearse disaster daily. We worry about judgment before we speak. We feel pain before anything has even happened. But most of the time, it never comes true.

Seneca points out that our minds create far more suffering than the world does. The body might be safe. The day might be calm. But the mind is staging tragedies.

It’s not that we shouldn’t prepare. But preparation is not the same as pre-punishment. You do not need to live through something twice, once mentally and again in reality.

The Stoic approach is simple: pause. Examine the story you’re telling yourself. Ask, "Is this happening - or am I just imagining it?"

Train yourself to separate fact from fiction. Replace fantasy with clarity. Accept what is, and drop what isn’t.

Reality is rarely as bad as your mind makes it.