When Pompey, the most powerful commander in Rome, put in at Rhodes, he wanted to hear the famous Stoic Posidonius. He was told the philosopher lay seriously ill with gout, and went anyway, only to pay his respects; he regretted that a lecture was out of the question. But you can hear me, Posidonius answered, and I will not let bodily pain be the reason a man of your standing comes for nothing. From his sickbed he then discussed at length the proposition that nothing is good except what is honorable. Whenever a spasm of pain seized him, he said: it is no use, pain; however troublesome you are, I will never admit that you are an evil. Cicero recorded the story from Pompey's own mouth.
Pain claims all your attention and has every right to. The question is not whether you feel it, but whether it gets to decide what else happens.
The gout, the spasms and the body that failed him: not his, and he never pretended not to feel it. What was his: the judgment about the pain, and whether he kept his appointment. Note the nuance: he did not deny the pain, he only refused the conclusion that pain is the same thing as evil.
What are you putting off because you do not feel well? And which part of it could happen anyway, if you felt the pain without letting it write the schedule?
Yours, Not Yours · A Stoic practice ground · All cases