Seneca on Groundless Fears

Today’s episode is an excerpt from The Tao Of Seneca produced by Tim Ferriss’ Audio. In this letter Seneca explores our irrational relationship with fear, how fear is the thing that is holding us back, and how we suffer more in imagination than reality. The Daily Stoic is now available as a Shortcast on Blinkist. You can revisit past episodes or get through ones you missed—all with a fresh perspective and even a few updates in insight-packed listens of around 15 minutes. Check it out at blinkist.com80,000 Hours is a nonprofit that provides free research and support to help people have a positive impact with their career. To get started planning a career that works on one of the world’s most pressing problems, sign up now at 80000hours.org/stoic.✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more.📱Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, FacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. 📢 Share | ⚙️ Manage Subscription

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:04Ryan Holiday?

  Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Stoic Podcast. On Sundays, we take a deeper dive into these ancient topics with excerpts from the Stoic texts, audiobooks that we like here or recommend here at Daily Stoic, and other long-form wisdom that you can chew on on this relaxing weekend. We hope this helps shape your understanding of this philosophy, and most importantly, that you're able to apply it to your actual life. Thank you for listening.

• 0:39Ryan Holiday?

  All the Stoics were active in life, trying to make a difference, trying to have a positive impact on the world. They were suspicious of the pen and ink philosophers of people who just wrote about stuff who didn't do it. But we've talked before about how you're only on this planet for like 4,000 weeks. Let's say you work for 40 years of that time. That's 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year, 40 years, that's 80,000 hours. Your career is roughly 80,000 hours. It's a lot of time, but it's also not a lot of time. You really can't afford to waste it, but if you dedicate yourself and end that time productively and effectively, you can have a huge positive impact on the world. You can serve the common good, as the Stoics talk about.

• 1:21Ryan Holiday?

  There's actually an awesome nonprofit called 80,000 Hours that gives free research and support to help people create positive impact with their career. You can join their newsletter. They'll send you a free in-depth guide that takes you through all the steps, all the way to a concrete career plan. They host an awesome job board with nearly 1,000 open, high-impact career opportunities, and they offer free one-on-one advice to help you switch paths. There's also a great 80,000 Hours podcast, which hosts super in-depth conversations with experts about how to best tackle pressing global problems. You can join the newsletter right now, get a free copy of their in-depth career guide sent right to your inbox. Just sign up at 80,000hours.org/stoic. That's 80, the number 80,000hours.org/stoic. 8-0-000-hours.org/stoic.

• 2:10Ryan Holiday?

  And just to be clear, they're a nonprofit and everything they provide is free always. They're fully philanthropically funded. Their only goal is to help you have more impact in your career with those 80,000 hours that you have on this planet. To get started planning a career that works, well, sign up at 80000hours.org/stoic.

• 2:33Ryan Holiday?

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• 4:12Ryan Holiday?

  Probably one of the most popular quotes we've ever run on Daily Stoic is this quote from Seneca. He says, "We suffer more in imagination than in reality." It's interesting because it's such a beautifully expressed idea. It's also, there's kind of a paradox in that, right? Seneca also talks a lot about premeditatio malorum, about planning in advance. He says, "The unexpected blow lands heaviest." So how do we balance this tension between preparing and not torturing ourselves? Well, that's what today's episode is about. I'm bringing you an excerpt from Seneca's letters, specifically an audiobook produced by my friend Tim Ferriss called The Tao of Seneca. You can actually get this for free as a PDF if you want. You can go to tim.blog/seneca

• 4:56Ryan Holiday?

  and you can get the audiobook from Audible as well. But in this letter, one of my favorite letters from Seneca, Seneca explores our irrational relationship with fear. He talks about how fear holds us back, how it tortures us, how we borrow suffering, basically how so many troubles exist exclusively in our heads, in our minds. And if we can see through that, if we can not assent to this suffering, will not only help ourselves in the present, but also in the future. And I hope you enjoy this book. You can get The Tao of Seneca anywhere audiobooks are available. As I understand it, you can also get it for free at tim.blog/seneca.

• 5:36Ryan Holiday?

  And of course, we have my favorite physical translation of letters from a stoic here at the Painted Porch, which I will include in today's show notes. So check that out. Enjoy.

• 5:56Speaker 01

  Letter 13, On Groundless Fears.

• 6:03Speaker 01

  I know that you have plenty of spirit, for even before you began to equip yourself with maxims, which were wholesome and potent to overcome obstacles, you were taking pride in your contest with fortune. And this is all the more true now that you have grappled with fortune and tested your powers. For our powers can never inspire in us implicit faith in ourselves, except when many difficulties have confronted us on this side and on that, and have occasionally even come to close quarters with us. It is only in this way that the true spirit can be tested, the spirit that will never consent to come

• 6:44Speaker 01

  under the jurisdiction of things external to ourselves. This is the touchstone of such a spirit. No prizefighter can go with high spirits into the strife if he has never been beaten black and blue. The only contestant who can confidently enter the lists is the man who has seen his own blood, who has felt his teeth rattled beneath his opponent's fist, who has been tripped and felt the full force of his adversary's charge, who has been downed in body but not in spirit, one who, as often as he falls, rises again with greater defiance than ever. So then, to keep up my figure,

• 7:29Speaker 01

  fortune has often in the past got the upper hand of you. And yet, you have not surrendered, but have leaped up and stood your ground still more eagerly. For manliness gains much strength by being challenged. Nevertheless, if you approve, allow me to offer some additional safeguards by which you may fortify yourself.

• 7:54Speaker 01

  There are more things, Nukilius, likely to frighten us than there are to crush us. We suffer more often in imagination than in reality. I am not speaking with you in the stoic strain, but in my milder style. For it is our stoic fashion to speak of all those things which provoke cries and groans as unimportant and beneath notice. But you and I must drop such great sounding words, although heaven knows they are true enough. 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,

• 8:39Speaker 01

  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, or imagining, or anticipating sorrow. The first of these three faults may be postponed for the present, because the subject is under discussion and the case is still in court, so to speak. That which I should call trifling, you will maintain to be most serious. For of course I know that some men laugh while being flogged,

• 9:22Speaker 01

  and that others wince at a box on the ear. We shall consider later whether these evils derive their power from their own strength or from our own weakness. Do me the favor, when men surround you and try to talk you into believing that you are unhappy, to consider not what you hear, but what you yourself feel, and to take counsel with your feelings and question yourself independently, because you know your own affairs better than anyone else does. Ask: Is there any reason why these persons should condole with me? Why should they be worried or even fearsome infection from me, as if troubles could be transmitted?

• 10:05Speaker 01

  Is there any evil involved? Or is it a matter merely of ill report, rather than an evil? Put the question voluntarily to yourself: Am I tormented without sufficient reason? Am I morose? And do I convert what is not an evil into what is an evil?

• 10:26Speaker 01

  You may retort with the question: How am I to know whether my sufferings are real or imaginary?

• 10:34Speaker 01

  Here is the rule for such matters: We are tormented either by things present, or by things to come, or by both. As to things present, the decision is easy. Suppose that your person enjoys freedom and health, and that you do not suffer from any external injury. As to what may happen to it in the future, we shall see later on; today there is nothing wrong with it. But, you say, something will happen to it! First of all, consider whether your proofs of future trouble are sure; for it is more often the case that we are troubled by our apprehensions, and that we are mocked by that mockery rumor, which is wont to settle wars,

• 11:20Speaker 01

  but much more often settles individuals. Yes, my dear Lucilius, we agree too quickly with what people say. We do not put to the test those things which cause our fear; we do not examine into them; we blench and retreat, just like soldiers who are forced to abandon their camp because of a dust cloud raised by stampeding cattle, or are thrown into a panic by the spreading of some unauthenticated rumor; and somehow or other it is the idle report that disturbs us most; for truth has its own definite boundaries, but that which arises from uncertainty is delivered over to guesswork in the irresponsible license of a frightened mind.

• 12:06Speaker 01

  That is why no fear is so ruinous and so uncontrollable as panic fear; for other fears are groundless, but this fear is witless.

• 12:19Speaker 01

  Let us then look carefully into the matter. It is likely that some troubles will befall us, but it is not a present fact. How often has the unexpected happened? How often 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? You will suffer soon enough when it arrives, so look forward meanwhile to better things. What shall you gain by doing this? Time. There will be many happenings meanwhile which will serve to postpone, or end, or pass on to another person

• 13:03Speaker 01

  the trials which are near or even in your very presence. A fire has opened the way to flight. Men have been let down softly by a catastrophe. Sometimes the sword has been checked even at the victim's throat. Men have survived their own executioners. Even bad fortune is fickle. Perhaps it will come, perhaps not. In the meantime, it is not. So look forward to better things.

• 13:35Speaker 01

  The mind at times fashions for itself false shapes of evil when there are no signs that point to any evil. It twists into the worst construction some word of doubtful meaning, or it fancies some personal grudge to be more serious than it really is, considering not how angry the enemy is, but to what lengths he may go if he is angry. But life is not worth living, and there is no limit to our sorrows if we indulge our fears to the greatest possible extent. In this matter, let prudence help you, and contemn with a resolute spirit even when it is in plain sight. If you cannot do this,

• 14:20Speaker 01

  counter one weakness with another and temper your fear with hope. There is nothing so certain among these objects of fear that it is not more certain still that things we dread sink into nothing and that things we hope for mock us.

• 14:39Speaker 01

  Accordingly, weigh carefully your hopes as well as your fears, and whenever all the elements are in doubt, decide in your own favor. Believe what you prefer. And if fear wins a majority of the votes, incline in the other direction anyhow, and cease to harass your soul, reflecting continually that most mortals, even when no troubles are actually at hand, or are certainly to be expected in the future, become excited and disquieted. No one calls a halt on himself when he begins to be urged ahead, nor does he regulate his alarm according to the truth. No one says, "The author of the story is a fool,

• 15:22Speaker 01

  and he who has believed it is a fool, as well as he who fabricated it." We let ourselves drift with every breeze. We are frightened at uncertainties, just as if they were certain. We observe no moderation. The slightest thing turns the scales and throws us forthwith into a panic. But I am ashamed either to admonish you sternly, or to try to beguile you with such mild remedies. Let another say. "Perhaps the worst will not happen." You yourself must say. "Well, what if it does happen? Let us see who wins.

• 16:05Speaker 01

  Perhaps it happens for my best interests. It may be that such a death will shed credit upon my life." Socrates was ennobled by the hemlock draught. Wrenched from Cato's hand his sword, the vindicator of liberty, and you deprive him of the greatest share of his glory. I am exhorting you far too long, since you need reminding rather than exhortation. The path on which I am leading you is not different from that on which your nature leads you. You were born to such conduct as I describe. Hence, there is all the more reason why you should increase and beautify the good that is in you. But now, to close my letter.

• 16:50Speaker 01

  I have only to stamp the usual seal upon it, in other words, to commit thereto some noble message to be delivered to you. The fool, with all his other faults, has this also: He is always getting ready to live.

• 17:08Speaker 01

  Reflect, my esteemed Lucilius, what this saying means, and you will see how revolting is the fickleness of men who lay down every day new foundations of life and begin to build up fresh hopes even at the brink of the grave. Look within your own mind for individual instances. You will think of old men who are preparing themselves at that very hour for a political career, or for travel, or for business. And what is baser than getting ready to live when you are already old? I should not name the author of this motto, except that it is somewhat unknown to fame, and it is not one of those popular sayings of Epicurus which I have allowed myself

• 17:53Speaker 01

  to praise and to appropriate. Farewell.

• 18:04Ryan Holiday?

  Thanks for listening to the Daily Stoic Podcast. Just a reminder, we've got signed copies of all my books in the Daily Stoic store. You can get them personalized, you can get them sent to a friend. The Obstacle is the Way, He Goes the Enemy, Stillness is the Key, the leather-bound edition of the Daily Stoic. We have them all in the Daily Stoic store, which you can check out at store.dailystoic.com.