We suffer more in imagination than in reality – Seneca
I woke in the middle of the night to a pulse like an irregular heartbeat in my stomach.
I had never experienced this feeling before.
Usually a pulse is a vital sign of life.
But the throbbing in my stomach was unsettling.
I tried to go back to sleep, but the throbbing kept me awake.
So I got out of bed, grabbed my phone and started searching my symptoms on Google.
This is rarely a good idea.
For the most part, the information suggested I had nothing to worry about.
But there was one potential condition – an abdominal aortic aneurysm – that caught my attention.
It was potentially life-threatening.
If the aorta ruptures, some website purporting to be a medical authority said, it can kill you.
Half-awake, I somehow brushed the threat aside and willed myself back to sleep.
But the throbbing was there in the morning and I couldn’t shake my fear of an aneurysm in my aorta.
After all, the diagnosis matched the symptoms.
The possibility of a serious health condition clouded my mind for the rest of the day.
I was worried, afraid, irritable, and distant.
The thing is, I didn’t know that I had a serious health condition.
Odds were that I didn’t.
A quick Google search had led me to believe that it was a possibility.
I had allowed myself to imagine the worst case scenario and indulge my fear.
And I let that fear exert its power over my reality.
I think this is what Seneca is talking about in the famous quote from his book, Moral Letters to Lucilius.
“There are more things, Lucilius, likely to frighten us than there are to crush us; we suffer more often in imagination than in reality.”
We let imagined possibilities control our reality.
The possibility that I was seriously ill created an alternate universe in my mind.
I imagined riding in an ambulance. I imagined doctors doing scans. I imagined unbearable pain and surgery. I imagined potential issues around health insurance in a foreign country. I entertained the possibility of sudden death.
All of this played out in my mind, causing me undue stress.
And aside from the unfamiliar pulse in my stomach, none of it was real.
Our minds do this all the time.
We imagine the worst case scenario and allow it to play out over and over in our minds.
It eats away at us.
It induces anxiety and worry.
It drags us out of the present moment.
It distracts us from everything good that’s happening now.
It robs us of the limited time that we have.
And it’s not real.
This is why Seneca says we suffer more in imagination than reality.
Because we spend more time wrapped up in the narratives in our heads.
When, really, we should be focussed on what we know and what we can control – the here and now.
The pulse in my stomach went away the next day.
I’m still a bit worried about it and will get it checked out by a doctor.
It’s possible that I do have a serious health condition (I’ll get back to you on that one).
But I’m trying not to let myself get carried away by my imagination.
The Seneca excerpt above is commonly quoted, but the points that follow it are also worth considering:
“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, 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.”
Update:
I went to the hospital on the day I published this piece and underwent several tests.
My aorta is fine. It seems my pancreas might have been irritated, based on slightly elevated levels of two enzymes in my blood.
I’ve been taking special care with my diet over the past few days and haven’t had any symptoms.
I think it’s fair to say that I suffered more in my imagination than in reality.
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