THE PHILOSOPHICAL BREAKDOWN || SENECA

''We suffer more often in imagination than in reality''

~ SENECA

We appear for our exams but after the exams, a general fear of result keep on frightening us till the time results come. Well, that’s something clearly highlighting our ability to overthink and the psychological fear, embedded in our general programming. We all know the results are nothing but the evaluation of everything we did, still, we get anxious, unable to comprehend the reality, and hence keep on worrying about it. It only brings us sufferings with respect to something that is perhaps or perhaps not gonna happen. Sometimes we even torture ourselves to the extremes for the sake of our futuristic imaginations. The same is beautifully mentioned in the statement by Seneca, " We suffer more often in imagination than in real life". Let's try to understand what Seneca actually wanted to express and what he wanted us to realize.

According to Seneca, we often live in the realm of something yet to come and don't try to accept that the future doesn't exist yet. So, what's the point of thinking and worrying about something that is practically not existing yet. 

We keep on fantasizing about the illusions of the future and hence our inquisition to predict the future increases multiple folds, which ultimately increases our worries and hence our sufferings. 

Oftentimes, we imagine the situation as a catastrophe but in reality, it turns out to be salvatory and pleasurable.

The future isn't something that can be controlled. But in order to fulfill our fantasies of glory and pleasure, we use to try to speculate the future and this speculation in a real sense gives rise to our sufferings. It is our anticipations and fear of failure that is bringing this sense of dejection and that too hypothetically. In a true sense, this simply denotes our inability to accept the truth and facing the reality. We act by avoiding the truth and by ignoring reality. We don't want to face the pain and hence instead of facing the situation, we exaggerate the situation. This exaggeration ultimately turns the pain more painful, which brings nothing but sufferings in the form of imagination, and hence we suffer more in our imagination than in reality.