Stoic Advice On Establishing Balance Between Optimism and Pessimism

“…life is not worth living, and there is no limit to our sorrows, if we indulge our fears to the greatest possible extent…” Seneca

"Rehearse them in your mind: exile, torture, war, shipwreck." also Seneca

Was Seneca joking with his friend Lucilius, to whom he was sending these letters, and with us, who are reading them, or can these two contradictory messages make sense at the same time?

How to make sense of the fact that, in some of his letters, Seneca advises not to be disturbed by things that haven’t happened yet, and we don’t know if they ever will, and in others he urges us to think about everything that could go wrong in one’s future?

When I first came across the Stoic idea of negative visualization, my natural inclination towards pessimism made me fall victim to a mistake that people make too often when reading philosophy: finding an idea that they like and that suits their character and thinking, "This is it. This is THE truth to live by."

That’s why when I found Seneca, the Stoic who wrote the most about negative visualization, talking about how foolish it is to think too much about potential future suffering, it would be an understatement to say that I was confused.

So I decided to read all of his letter more carefully in order to understand this “contradiction.”

There is one extremely simple way to explain this, so let’s get it out of the way before we get to the real deal.

There is a difference between preparing yourself for the future and torturing yourself with worries about the future. There is a difference between contemplating what could go wrong so that you are not surprised if it does and being convinced that the worst will happen and suffering before it happens.

Stoic "premeditatio malorum," or negative visualization, is about strengthening yourself so that you are ready for any future scenario. It has nothing to do with being consumed by an overexaggerated fear of what could happen in the future.

As much as this makes perfect sense, actually drawing a clear line in your mind between preparing for the future and fearing the future is easier said than done.

So I kept looking through Seneca’s letters, and sure enough, this Stoic sage had the answer.

If you are not able to clear your mind and rationally conclude that you are overexaggerating your worries, then, Seneca says, "counter one weakness with another, and temper your fear with hope."

As you can see, hope is presented as a useful weakness, but a weakness nonetheless. This once again proves that too much "positive thinking" was regarded as foolish by the Stoics.

However, if the natural inclination of your mind drives you too far into the extremes of negative thinking and pessimism, foolish optimism is exactly what you need to establish balance in your mind.

The important thing, according to Seneca, is to actually notice what is the natural inclination of your mind. What does your mind usually lean toward? Hope or fear?

As Seneca says, "Weigh carefully your hopes as well as your fears…" so that you can see which one would win if you let it.

The result won’t be the same for every person.

If you notice that fear "wins the majority of the votes" in your mind, "incline in the other direction anyhow, and cease to harass your soul..."

If your mind leans too strongly towards fear, counter that by consciously leaning towards hope.

And the opposite is true, which is where all of Seneca’s quotes about premeditation on evils come from. Every time he talks about this practice of negative visualization, he uses examples of people who suffered more than necessary from troubles in their lives, just because they neglected the uncertain nature of the world and how ruthless fate can be.

For those people whose minds lean too strongly towards hope and tend to neglect the fact that anything can happen to anyone, it would be useful to counter this natural inclination of their mind, maybe not with fear but certainly with caution and preparation for the worst.

If we take all of this into account and realize how highly individualistic Seneca’s take on dealing with the future is, what seemed like a contradiction now makes perfect sense.

Those two pieces of advice from the beginning are equally true and useful. It just depends on the person and the moment in their life as to which one is true and useful for them.

I hope you find some value in this. I also hope that you start "weighing carefully your hopes and fears" so that you can establish balance if you see that one side is much heavier.

If you feel like sharing what the scale of your mind looks like, feel free to do so in the comments.

I can personally say that negative visualization saved my sanity, and perhaps my life, at one point. (I talk about that in my “Why Having A Price On My Head Didn't Upset Me” essay. You can read it if you are a paid supporter of Existential Espresso, or take a free trial to read this and other “members-only essays)

However, at some point the scale of my mind started leaning way too far to the side of preparing for the worst, and I had to adjust the weight distribution. So I keep checking the scale, and I keep adjusting.

Thank you for reading.

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