On Anxiety and Worry

Abandon yourself to destiny.

The ‘Neuroscience-based Tools’ & ‘Lead to Win’ sections are companions for The Stoic Manual to help you become wealthier, happier & more powerful by boosting your stress resilience, focus, motivation, relationships, overall health, and leadership skills—by Dr. Antonius Veritas.

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"Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present." — Marcus Aurelius

You fear you might have fucked up.

You might think the pain, discomfort, misfortune, and losses are unprecedented.

Feeling out of touch — out of your depth, you might ask yourself, “What the fuck was I thinking?”

All that worry is suffocating.

Trust me. You’ll even forget you’ve had some good times.

But, as my father told me on a phone call today, it's during these moments that it's wise to remember the struggles you've been through before and the strength, grace, and flicker of luck you've been fortunate to have to survive.

You can remember how you talked to your girlfriend about anything other than what was bothering you.

Or how you shared your woes with your friends and through their objective analysis they helped you see that you only need to go through this for a short while.

That the worry is not nearly as bad as you thought.

"We suffer more in imagination than reality." — Seneca

It’s true that,

"All your sorrows have been wasted on you if you have not yet learned how to be wretched," Seneca mentioned in one of his letters consoling his mother Helvia.

That passage tells us we can handle whatever comes with composure because we've dealt with hell before and we survived.

We can't abandon ourselves. And even if our friends can help us gain perspective, we still have to lift ourselves out of the misery. We have to be the friends we need.

Besides, we are not alone in this. It’s James Baldwin who wrote that,

“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive.”

It's not wrong to have a cold sweat running down your spine, palpitations making your shirt vibrate, stomach rumbling to signal impending diarrhea, fidgety hands and legs, or a stammer. Anticipate all that. Feel it. Observe and embrace the tension.

But don't get carried away by it because that's not who you are.

You might then wonder, what are you? Well…

"It's time you realized that you have something in you more powerful and miraculous than the things that affect you and make you dance like a puppet." — Marcus Aurelius.

Call it the soul, consciousness, or intellect. Whatever. You have an impermeable inner citadel. And to access it you have to stop identifying with what you feel.

Another antidote to anxiety and worry is knowing you can't always have what you want.

"Life is warfare and a journey far from home." Marcus Aurelius says.

In war, it's foolish to only dwell on what can go well. Wisdom is picturing the outcome you fear most and how you'll handle it if it happens.

This isn't an ode to despair — Beethoven would curse you in his grave.

It doesn't mean you don't do your best because you're already preparing for a loss.

You still want to win.

Instead, you're using your fear of the worst outcome to be more thorough and to work harder so that you don't end up in it. Yet, if you land deep in the trenches, you know you'll find a way out.

You make a contingency plan — put it aside and then pour your effort and attention into what you fully control: doing your best.

Napoleon put it well,

“The torment of precautions often exceeds the dangers to be avoided. It is sometimes better to abandon one’s self to destiny.”

Abandon yourself to destiny.

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Have a great week ahead,

Antonius Veritas.

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