The Daily Stoic - How To Work Through The Unimaginable | What Can Go Wrong...Might

Episode Date: April 1, 2025

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For more, visit dailystoic.com. ["The Unimaginable"] How to work through the unimaginable. It was a terrible blow. It was the call you never wanted to get. It was an awful setback. It's been a painful few months, a dreadful few years. This is life. It has always been thus.

Marcus Aurelius lost his father at age three, his mother at age 34. He buried nine of his children. His reign was, as an ancient historian said, an unending series of troubles, floods and wars and plagues and betrayals. How did he get out of bed in the morning? How did he stay hopeful? How did he stay good? How did he not fall to pieces? How did he work through the unimaginable? He did it in the pages of what would become meditations. He did it in conversations with Rusticus and Fronto and Sextus. Jarred unavoidably by his circumstances, Marcus Aurelius tried to get back to the rhythm of philosophy as much as he could help it. Was it easy? No. Was he superhuman?

No. He wept. We know this. He wept at work. His health faltered. He sometimes felt like giving up. He questioned whether the gods were picking on him. He lost his temper.

But he did keep going. He did his best. Not perfectly, not without pain, but with resolve. And that is the task before all of us. Like Marcus, we can choose to steady ourselves in wisdom, to seek refuge in philosophy, to lean on those who guide us. We will falter, we will doubt, we will grieve, but we will also rise again and again, not because it's easy, but because it's the only way forward. What can go wrong might,

and this is from this week's entry in the Daily Stoic Journal, 366 Days of Writing and Reflection on the Art of Living by yours truly. We call people who dwell on what might go wrong pessimists. Some even think that bad thoughts attract bad events. The Stoics found this all to be nonsense. In fact, they had a practice, pre-meditatio malorum, pre-meditation of evils, that specifically

encouraged musing on the so-called worst-case scenario. Marcus would begin his day thinking about all the ugliness he would see on display in court, not for the purpose of working himself up, but precisely the opposite, to calm and focus himself, to be prepared to act in the proper way rather than just to react. Seneca, too, practiced meditating in advance, not only on what normally happens, but on what could happen. Epictetus went as far as to imagine losing a loved one every time he would kiss them. The Stokes believed that all we have is on loan from fortune and that negative visualization

helps increase our awareness of the unexpected. So don't shy away from this and your thoughts. Then we have two quotes today from Marcus Aurelius and from Seneca. When you arise in the morning, tell yourself I will encounter busy bodies, ingrates, egomaniacs, liars, the jealous and cranks. They are all stricken with these afflictions because they don't know the difference between good and evil. Because I have understood the beauty of good and the ugliness of evil, I know that the wrongdoers are still akin to me, and that none can do me harm or implicate me in ugliness, nor can I be angry

at my relatives and hate them, for we are made for cooperation." Before I get to the Seneca quote, I would say that the many first times I read this quote, especially when I read it young, I focused on that first part where you list just how awful and frustrating everyone will be. And I think that's sort of the rudimentary understanding. He's like, look, don't go into the world all rosy eyed and bushy tailed or you're gonna get your heart stomped on. You gotta be aware, you gotta be prepared. Marcus Scurll says,

don't go expecting Plato's Republic. But it's really the second part of that that's hit me more. Why is he doing that exercise? It's so when he's hit by it, when he's hit by a cheat or a liar or a person who is messing around on their spouse or when he sees somebody do something wrong,

he's not surprised by it and it doesn't make him bitter and it doesn't make him write off all of humanity as a whole. He says, because I know better. I know that the wrongdoers are still akin to me. And he says, and none can do me harder, implicate me in ugliness, nor can I be angry at my relatives or hate them. That's something I've been working on.

It's like I was just dealing with this someone who I really care about and they're just being, not safe or smart or who I know them to be. And I wanted to unload on them and I really care about, and they're just being not safe or smart or who I know them to be. And I wanted to unload on them, and I had to go, no, I care about this person. I should have prepared for this. I shouldn't have built them up in my head.

They're a human being, they have flaws, they do the wrong thing sometimes. I'm not gonna cast them out of my heart or out of my life for what they've done. And then this goes into the second Seneca quote, being unexpected adds to the weight of a disaster and being a surprise has never failed to increase a person's pain.

For that reason, nothing should ever be unexpected by us. Our mind should be sent out in advance to all the things and we shouldn't just consider the normal course of things but what could actually happen? For is there anything in life that fortune won't knock off its high horse if it pleases her? I have the Fremontascio-Mellorum coin here on my desk

and I just look at it, I go, look, look, Murphy's law is real, man. Things can go sideways fast. Seneca says, the only unforgivable thing for a general to say is I did not think it would happen. So of course, positive visualization is thinking of all the good things that can happen. You can succeed.

You can break through. You can make it. If it's humanly possible, know you can do it, Marcus says. The same time, the law of attraction is not real. If you think about negative things, you don't attract negative things. You actually make yourself more prepared to wrestle with and deal with and conquer those difficult things. And that is why we do our premeditation alarm.

That is why we think of all the things that can happen. That's why we meditate on the people we're likely to meet so that they can't drag us down. They can't implicate us in ugliness and they can't make us unhappy. Hey, it's Ryan. Thank you for listening to the Daily Stoic Podcast. I just wanted to say we so appreciate it.

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