Don't yield to panic. Seneca, Epistles 2.13.7-9

 We can fear the present or the future, the actual or the potential. Seneca wants us fortified at every point, prepared to face dangers that prove false as well as those that are real. Do not give way to fear, even when it is justified, lest you lose not just your cool, but also your mind.


Quomodo inquis intellegam, vana sint an vera quibus angor? Accipe huius rei regulam: aut praesentibus torquemur aut futuris aut utrisque. De praesentibus facile iudicium est. Si corpus tuum liberum et sanum est, nec ullus ex iniuria dolor est, videbimus quid futurum sit: hodie nihil negotii habet. At enim futurum est. Primum dispice an certa argumenta sint venturi mali; plerumque enim suspicionibus laboramus, et illudit nobis illa quae conficere bellum solet fama, multo autem magis singulos conficit. Ita est, mi Lucili: cito accedimus opinioni. Non coarguimus illa quae nos in metum adducunt nec excutimus, sed trepidamus et sic vertimus terga quemadmodum illi quos pulvis motus fuga pecorum exuit castris aut quos aliqua fabula sine auctore sparsa conterruit.

Nescio quomodo magis vana perturbant; vera enim modum suum habent: quidquid ex incerto venit coniecturae et paventis animi licentiae traditur. Nulli itaque tam perniciosi, tam inrevocabiles quam lymphatici metus sunt; ceteri enim sine ratione, hi sine mente sunt.


“How shall I understand whether I am tormented by empty things or actual problems?” you wonder. Here is a rule for this inquiry: we are tortured either by the present, by the future, or both. It is easy to reach a decision about the present. If your body is free and healthy, and you suffer no pain from actual injury, then we will see what the future brings: today offers no trouble. “But perhaps the future is our problem.” First, consider what proof you have that something evil is coming. We often struggle with mere suspicions, deceived by the well-known rumor of war that isolates us before any battle arrives. Here is our problem, Lucilius: we yield swiftly to opinion. We do not cross-examine the circumstances that move us to fear, inspecting them for weakness. Instead, we tremble and turn our backs—like feckless soldiers who flee camp when they see dust kicked up by cattle, or when they hear some terrifying tale published far and wide without any author.

I am not sure that illusions scare us more than reality, which offers true dangers: anything that comes to us from uncertainty becomes an object of presumptuous speculation in the mind seized with fear. There is nothing so ruinous, so impossible to call back, as fears that turn in this way to panic. Other fears deprive us of our reason, but these drive us out of our mind.