We Suffer More Often in Imagination Than in Reality

I recently noticed something about bad days. If you check all of the items off your to-do list, it makes no difference whether you did so miserably or with equanimity. The report was written, the project was completed, the dishes were done, the mail was dropped off, the trash was taken out. And the things don't care whether you suffered to do them, or delighted in doing them. The modern version of this is the saying "Pain is inevitable, but suffering is a choice."

Without getting too self-helpish, I do believe that this is an excellent example of the kind of actionable wisdom that Seneca and Stoicism in general offer. It pairs perfectly with last week's insight, that the present is really all we have, and how we can completely miss it by engaging in unnecessary suffering, rumination or anxiousness. 

For this illustration for "Letters from a Stoic," I chose a Parisian street as the backdrop, a sunset reflected in the Hausmann windows. A shadow is cast on the memory, transforming the scene into a rainy night, the crown of the man's head making a second dark sun. Seneca encourages us to accept the difficulties of life with equanimity, and to reject the temptation to dwell on what we can't control. And my day was more pleasurable for having read him.