Want less stress?
Try these on for size.
Two related concepts that work together to help improve your days – even the bad ones. Both attributed to Seneca and the Stoic tradition.
The First: “We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.”
The Second: “Do not let us build a second story to our sorrow by being sorry for our sorrow.”
The first is prospective – pretty obvious when you see it. Something might go wrong so we worry about it, we feel bad or anxious, as the moment approaches. What happens if….?
How many times have you experienced the sense “that wasn’t as bad as I expected.”?
It is a waste of this moment to worry about something that has not happened and may never happen. Note, this is not an abdication of planning or risk management, rather an honesty about attending to what is within your control – do take the action to reduce the risk, but don’t waste your experience in worry and don’t waste this moment in imagined suffering.
The Second Suffering arises when we can’t let go of what’s already occurred. You lose a contract – that’s the first suffering, the actual loss with its practical consequences. But then comes the endless replay: Why did I say that? What if I’d done this differently? This always happens to me.
The sense of personal injustice, ‘that should not have happened.’ Or more simply, ‘I wish that never happened.’
That’s the second suffering, and it’s entirely self-inflicted.
Other traditions frame similar concepts. Buddhist teachings about attachment and their “second arrow” are examples.
You can use these simple ideas for fast interventions that cut rumination short.
Remind yourself – not to suffer imagined troubles and to avoid the second suffering.
Or to put more positively: Live life once in real time as it arises.
Once is enough.