"Fear Keeps Pace With Hope"
Don't be distracted from the reality of now
In his fifth letter to Lucilius, Seneca recalls something he remembers that the Stoic Hecato once wrote: "Cease to hope and you will cease to fear." He expounds on that, pointing out, "Fear keeps pace with hope... Both belong to a mind in suspense, to a mind in a state of anxiety through looking into the future. Both are mainly due to projecting our thoughts far ahead of us instead of adapting ourselves to the present."
He goes on to say, "Wild animals run from the dangers they actually see, and once they have escaped them worry no more. We however are tormented alike by what is past and what is to come... Memory brings back the agony of fear while foresight brings it on prematurely."
This is the very concept behind accepting that the only Reality is in the Now. The past is done, and the future cannot be known. Wasting time and emotional energy on worrying (or lamenting or hoping or fearing) about things beyond the present moment just brings about anxiety and suffering.
Live each and every moment as if it is the only one that matters. That is the way to contentment with life as it is.
Quotes taken from Seneca: Letters from a Stoic, selected and translated by Robin Campbell; Penguin Classics.
