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, 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.
If I look back over the years, and I think of all the things that I have feared, I will quickly grow annoyed with myself. As much as I hate to admit it, almost all of them were illusory, either threats I imagined hovering over me or torments I was certain would turn up around the corner.
We can be quick to dismiss the terrors of children, though I suspect our adult worries are just as silly, even if they appear more refined.
The only way to come to terms with any of them was to rebuild all of my values, from the ground up, and to no longer think of circumstances as defining me.
Losing all of my possessions was then far less horrifying than losing my character, what she thought of me was now quite secondary to what I did with myself, and for all the pains and losses that could come my way, nothing could harm me on the inside, unless I permitted it to do so.
Prudence is more than being clever; it is an insight into what truly distinguishes the good from the bad, and it is what in turn makes genuine courage possible.
I am not always in my top form, however, and there are some days when the old demons make a return appearance. As Bilbo Baggins said, “I feel thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread.”
My thinking will lag too far behind my feelings. At times like that, when I struggle to keep my head above water, there is no shame in countering the feelings of fear with feelings of hope.
Now this may seem like the obvious remedy, but I think Seneca understands that hope can end up being just as harmful to us as fear, and so it is the second-best option. Though warnings about hope sound ridiculous to most people, the danger is in why we hope, and in what we hope for.
Am I expecting to receive something I believe I deserve? This is foolhardy, since happiness is not measured by receiving. Am I looking forward to some sort of final reckoning, where I win a great victory, and the world bows to my command? This is nothing but vanity, since I am made to work with Nature, not lord over her.
Hope will destroy me if I think it means I am assured to ultimately get stuff, whatever stuff tickles my fancy. I don’t need to get anything at all, only to give of myself in order to be most fully myself.
It is an entirely different matter if I hope that I can become a more understanding and loving person, or if I hope that I can maintain my sense of right and wrong through all the sound and fury. As they say, be careful what you wish for. Consider first what you can do, not what might be done unto you.
I’m afraid I have little patience for the sort of contemporary “self-help” models that tell me how everything will be better tomorrow, and that if I can dream it, I can achieve it.
Distinguish. Absolutely nothing is assured about the future, and the only thing assured about the present is that I have the power to master myself for this moment.
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