My life has been full of terrible misfortunes most of which never happened.
-Michel de Montaigne
We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.
-Seneca
Or maybe he actually said this…the internet is (un?)surprisingly unreliable in its accuracy of attribution:
There is nothing so wretched or foolish as to anticipate misfortunes. What madness it is in your expecting evil before it arrives!
-Seneca
Ahh, the Stoics, some of my favorites. When being described as “stoic” myself, I prefer the word “equanimous”, which I first learned about from Dave Chappelle’s special, Equanimity & The Bird Revelation. Mr. C is an unmitigated genius.
Anyway: There are also versions pegged to Mark Twain, or Winston Churchill. Wherever it originated, the message is the same, and it’s very useful. I’d argue the Bible said it best:
And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?
-Matthew 6:27, ESV