The Weight We Create

"Man is not worried by real problems so much as by his imagined anxieties about real problems."
— Epictetus

It’s not the event.
It’s the fear of what it might mean.
It’s the endless spinning of "what ifs" in the quiet hours.
It’s the imagined disasters.
The invisible enemies.
The mountains we create out of moments that were only ever meant to be hills.

We think we’re fighting reality, but more often, we’re fighting our imagination.
And imagination is a fierce opponent—because it can create pain where there is none yet.
It can spin an ordinary setback into a catastrophe.
It can take an uncomfortable moment and turn it into a story about failure, rejection, worthlessness.

That’s the danger Epictetus warned us about.
Not the real problems—life will always have real problems.
It’s the imagined anxieties about real problems that drain us.
The added weight we carry without realizing it’s optional.

We suffer more in thought than we do in action.
We exhaust ourselves living out outcomes that may never even happen.
We rehearse grief that hasn’t arrived.
We pre-live failure we haven’t faced.
We grieve losses we haven't lost.
We brace for blows that were never aimed at us.

And in doing so, we miss the present.
We miss the small joys tucked between moments of uncertainty.
We miss the strength we actually have because we are too busy believing the story that we are powerless.

Reality is hard enough.
Life will ask us to be brave.
Life will ask us to endure.
But life is rarely as cruel as the fears we invent about it.

The truth is: most real problems are faced one step at a time.
Not all at once.
Not at the speed of panic.
But with slow, steady, courageous steps.
And we are more capable of walking through them than our anxiety gives us credit for.

Next time your mind tries to run ahead into disaster, pause.
Breathe.
Ask yourself:
Is this real right now, or is this just fear trying to write the story for me?
Is this happening, or am I making it happen twice—once in life, and once in my mind?

You are stronger than the narrative of doom your mind tries to tell you.
You are capable of facing real problems without the imagined agony that tries to paralyze you.
You are braver than the voice that says you can’t handle what’s coming.
Because you’ve handled everything so far.

Reality asks for resilience.
Anxiety asks for surrender.
Choose resilience.

Face what’s real.
Let go of what’s imagined.
And trust: you can live through truth.
You don't have to live through terror.

There is a strength in you that fear doesn’t want you to see.
But it’s there.
It always has been.
And it’s stronger than anything you could imagine.