Stoic affirmations
Stoic affirmations for anxiety, in the Stoics’ own words
The Stoics wrote no affirmations for anxiety, but Seneca’s thirteenth letter is a treatise on it: it separates what is feared from what actually happens, and places most of the suffering on the side of what is imagined. Marcus Aurelius gives the other half of the method, that neither the future nor the past pains us, but only the present, and the present is small once it is circumscribed.
In the texts
Seneca · Letter 13, §4
There are more things, Lucilius, likely to frighten us than there are to crush us; we suffer more often in imagination than in reality.
Seneca · Letter 13, §5
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.
Seneca · Letter 13, §10
And even though it is ordained to be, what does it avail to run out to meet your suffering?
Marcus Aurelius · Meditations, VIII, 36
In the next place remember that neither the future nor the past pains thee, but only the present.
Seneca’s thirteenth letter to Lucilius, in Gummere’s 1917 translation, is addressed to a man who has already been tested by Fortune. Its central sentence, quoted above, is a count: it sets what frightens against what actually harms, and imagination against reality. Seneca then sorts the faults of fear into three. Some things torment us more than they ought, some before they ought, and some when they ought not to torment us at all. The first he leaves aside, since what counts as serious is still in dispute; the letter deals with the other two (Premeditatio malorum). The full text is on Letter 13.
The method he gives is an examination, not a reassurance. The first question is whether there are certain signs of the trouble, or only rumour; we do not put to the test the things that cause our fear, and we retreat like soldiers frightened by a dust-cloud. Even if the evil is ordained to come, what does it avail to run out to meet it? It will be felt soon enough when it arrives, and many things may postpone it or turn it aside meanwhile. Seneca does not deny the danger; he denies that fear is a measure of it.
Marcus Aurelius states the same rule from the inside, in book VIII of the Meditations, translated by George Long in 1862. He does not let his thoughts embrace at once all the troubles he may expect; on each occasion he asks what in this is intolerable, and is ashamed to answer. Then he adds: neither the future nor the past pains him, but only the present, and the present is reduced to very little if he circumscribes it (Prosoche).
The two authors describe anxiety as a judgment that runs ahead of events. Their answer is to bring it back to the present case and to the evidence, which is where tranquillity, in their vocabulary, is found (Ataraxia).
Why this is not a positive affirmation
An affirmation for anxiety usually replaces a frightening sentence with a calming one: I am safe, all is well. Seneca does not do this. He does not tell Lucilius that nothing will happen; he asks what the evidence is, and admits that some troubles are likely to befall us. Marcus Aurelius does not say the present is pleasant; he says it is small, and that the weight comes from adding the future and the past to it.
The Stoic sentence is a description that can be checked against the case in front of one. It works, when it works, by correcting a judgment, not by covering it with another.
Terms in the glossary
- Premeditatio malorum — praemeditatio malorum (latin)
- Prosoche — προσοχή (prosochē)
- Ataraxia — ἀταραξία (ataraxia)
In Stoïque, the life theme “Anxiety” opens the passages on this subject, each with its reference. The theme is free.