The Fear of the Future
Seneca’s advice on reclaiming control of our thoughts and focusing on the present moment
In Moral Letter 13, Seneca warns his friend Lucilius of the dangers of allowing fear of the future to run our lives. In his now famous line, he writes:
“More things frighten us, Lucilius, than really affect us, and we are more often afflicted in thought than fact.”
Fear is a natural part of life, along with anticipating the future. These are biological events that arise within us, often together, as a way to predict our safety in the near future. As we evolved, however, and left living in a hunter-gatherer lifestyle and moved into more modern ways of living, our situations and surroundings became increasingly safer, but our minds remained situated in the fight-or-flight response of the sahara.
Seneca’s first advice to avoid these patterns of fear thinking is to remind ourselves to not be miserable before the time is at hand.
“Don’t be miserable before it is time. Those things you fear as if they were impending may never happen; certainly they have not happened yet. Some things, then, torment us more than they should, some sooner than they should; and some torment us that should not do so at all: either we add to our pain, or we make it up, or we get ahead of it.”
The second way to avoid this fear of the future is to look at the evidence that is presented. We often fear the future due to the emotional nature that arises in us about it — the future is unknowable and unpredictable, in our minds anything can happen. But if we look at the present moment and investigate the evidence before us, we are better prepared for the future:
“First, find out whether there is firm evidence that trouble is on the way. For all too often we worry about what we merely suspect… We do not demand evidence of the things that frighten us, or check them out carefully; we quail, and take to our heels, like the army that breaks camp because of a dust cloud kicked up by a herd of cattle, or like people who are terrified by some item of anonymous gossip.”
A third way to quash the negative thoughts of the future is to remind ourselves that with every fear, there is also hope. Seneca advises Lucilius to remember this and give equal opportunity to hope in one’s mind as one does fear.
“Give careful consideration to hope and fear alike and whenever the situation remains uncertain, do yourself a favor and give credence to the thing you prefer.”
For the things we fear for the future, the majority never play out in reality. By remembering this, we can begin to pull our mind back to the present moment and avoid these running thoughts.
“How many of our expectations never happen at all! Even if it is to come, what good does it do to anticipate grief? You will grieve soon enough, when it comes; in the meantime, allow yourself something better. What do you gain by that? Time.”
In Kamal Ravikant’s excellent short book, Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends On It, he discusses the ability to control one’s own thought patterns and the ability to discard useless thoughts. For those that do not help, he reminds himself by saying “Not Useful.” This is the basis of cognitive behavioral therapy, inspired by the Stoics — we have power over our thoughts. Over time and with practice, we can change our default wiring so that when negative thoughts arise, we can simply remind ourselves some are “not useful” and immediately let them go.
As Seneca summarizes:
“Perhaps it will happen, perhaps it won’t; certainly it is not happening now. So keep the better things in view.”