Are You Suffering Twice?
In Stoicism, "suffering twice" refers to the suffering we cause ourselves by worrying about things that might never happen.
Seneca wrote:
"He suffers more than necessary, who suffers before it is necessary".
He also said:
"We suffer more in imagination than in reality".
Doesn’t that feel uncomfortably true?
We suffer once through worry, in advance, about something that might happen. Then we suffer again, if the thing actually happens. We are basically borrowing suffering from the future.
That doesn’t sound like a great way to spend our limited energy.
So what can we do? Honestly, I don’t know. For me, simply having a name for this tendency helps me notice when I’m doing it. Labelling it builds awareness, and awareness is the first step towards change.
What about you? How do you stop yourself from suffering twice?
