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Fear and the future

Fear is nearly always about a future that has not happened, built out of a scenario you wrote yourself. That does not make it foolish; it makes it addressable. Here you practise separating a real risk you can prepare for from a rehearsal of a disaster.

47 exercises and cases on fear and the future, from the Stoic practice of sorting what is yours from what is not.

Cases in this topic

Agrippinus and the verdict at lunchFear and the futureStockdale and the eight years of captivityFear and the futureThe fire of LyonFear and the futureFannia and the forbidden bookFear and the futureJulius Canus and the gameFear and the futureSocrates before his judgesFear and the future

Cuts in this topic

Take the situation apart. Each piece goes in one box; there is no third option.

The situation
Your employer announces a restructuring and the names are not out yet.
Yours
  • How many evenings you spend running scenarios.
  • Whether you update your CV in the meantime.
  • Whether you keep working normally until you know.
Not yours
  • Whether your role is on the list.
  • When the board provides clarity.
  • What gets passed around in the corridors.
Read the full sorting
The situation
Your child leaves alone for the other side of the world.
Yours
  • Whether you send him off with what is useful or with what your fear dictates.Insurance and a copy of his passport are useful. Fourteen messages a day are your unease, packed into his rucksack.
  • Whether you fill your days with something or stay by the phone.The hours you spend waiting do not fill themselves with news. What you do with those hours is on your side.
  • Whether you let him go as somebody who can manage it.How you say goodbye is the last thing he takes with him. Confidence you speak out travels along; so does doubt.
Not yours
  • What happens to him out there.Thousands of miles, thousands of accidents of chance. This is the box all your attention wants to go to and the one with no dial on it.
  • Whether he checks in as often as you would like.His pace, his signal, his age. You can agree something once and you cannot enforce it.
  • That you miss him.Missing is the price of attachment, not a sign that something is wrong. It belongs to the situation and it does not leave because you fight it.
The reasoning. Fear for somebody else is the hardest variety, because the left column here contains a person you love. The division is the same all the same. His safety, his pace, his experiences are his. Yours are the preparation, your own days and the tone in which you wave him off, and that last piece is the only one he actually takes with him.
The situation
Next week you have to speak to a hall of three hundred people.
Yours
  • How often you have rehearsed it out loud.
  • Whether you prepare for what goes wrong instead of avoiding the thought.
  • Whether you speak about what you actually think.
Not yours
  • That you get nervous thinking about it.
  • Whether the hall approves.
  • Whether somebody says something unpleasant afterwards.
Read the full sorting
The situation
You are worried about your finances.
Yours
  • The overview you keep postponing.Going through the subscriptions, seeking help where it pinches, a small amount set aside automatically: all of it can be done today, without anyone cooperating. And whoever picks up his own half notices the worries about the other half growing softer; vague fear cannot stand up to concrete numbers.
  • The doom scenarios you calculate at night.That the first scenario presents itself happens to you; the hour you spend calculating it does not. Night sums never add up and are never handed in the next morning. Put the sum on paper tomorrow, with real numbers; that is the same effort with a result.
Not yours
  • Interest rates, prices, the economy.Those move on forces no household turns. You can follow them, but following is different from carrying; whoever tries to steer them in his head lies awake without changing a single number.
The reasoning. The worry shrinks as your half becomes more concrete. Start with what you can add up today, and let the newspaper carry the rest.
The situation
Before sleep you scroll through the news one more time, and then lie awake.
Yours
  • The scrolling, and what you do tomorrow.
Not yours
  • The news itself.
  • That your head continues with what it saw.
Read the full sorting
The situation
Tomorrow you are giving the speech at your best friend’s wedding.
Yours
  • Your preparation, your first sentence, your breathing.And the decision that you are coming to give something rather than to get something. Nerves belong to it; the body is getting ready, that is the first movement. Send your attention to what you have to say, and the room shrinks by itself.
Not yours
  • How the room responds tomorrow.Who half listens, whether the technology cooperates, what people think afterwards: that plays out on their side of the stage. Even a perfect story steers no audience.
  • The heartbeat and the dry mouth tonight and tomorrow morning.The body is preparing for something big; that programme runs outside your will, even for speakers with thirty years of experience. It is not an alarm but fuel. You do not have to breathe it away in order to begin.
The reasoning. The room belongs to the room; the story belongs to you, and by this time tomorrow it will have been told.
The situation
The decision about the reorganisation has been postponed yet again.
Yours
  • Your work these weeks, your CV, and your network.Do the preparatory part well, once: update the CV, have one conversation with someone in your network, and then simply do your work. That is everything that exists on your side of this reorganisation.
  • Joining the corridor talk.Every coffee machine has its own list of names these weeks. Speculating along feels like gathering information, but all you gather is other people’s nerves. You may stand there without betting along; that too is a choice that gets noticed.
Not yours
  • Who has to go, and when that becomes known.The decision falls elsewhere and you do not set the date. Speculating with colleagues changes none of it; it feels like preparing, but it only keeps the uncertainty warm.
The reasoning. The list is written elsewhere; your weeks until that list you write yourself.
The situation
Your child is moving out to live in another city.
Yours
  • How you say goodbye, and what you do with the space.Staying reachable without checking up, and giving the freed space something of its own. Letting go here is not less love; it is the shape love takes when somebody grows up.
Not yours
  • That he is going, how he fares, and how often he calls.However much you might wish otherwise: his city, his days and his calling rhythm are now his. The fear you feel is the proof that it was good.
  • The quiet house in the first weeks.The empty chair at dinner and the missing sound from upstairs: that settles at its own pace, not yours. The silence is not a sign that something is wrong; it is the sound of a task completed.
The reasoning. His leaving is the proof that your work is done; what you do with the empty room is the next work.
The situation
There has been a burglary next door and you no longer feel safe at home.
Yours
  • The measures, and the letting go after.
Not yours
  • That it happened, and that it could happen again.
  • The startling at every sound, the first nights.
Read the full sorting

Propositions in this topic

True or false? The answer is given; the reasoning behind it comes with the exercise.

Situations in this topic

Each situation below is already sorted: yours, not yours, or both. That sorting is the exercise.

Practice this yourself

Yours, Not Yours · A Stoic practice ground · All cases · Questions or suggestions