"We suffer more often in imagination than in reality."

"We suffer more often in imagination than in reality."
— Seneca

The mind is a powerful storyteller.
It can take a moment of uncertainty and spin it into catastrophe.
It can turn a single doubt into a mountain of fear.
It can create whole worlds of pain that we live in—before anything has even happened.

And sometimes, that's the real battle:
not what’s happening to us,
but what we tell ourselves about what’s happening.

We brace for impacts that never come.
We bleed over wounds that haven't been made.
We lose sleep over futures that will never exist.
All because our imagination paints a darker picture than reality ever intended.

Fear thrives in the spaces between what is and what might be.
It whispers that the worst will happen.
It convinces us that we won’t survive what’s ahead.
It pulls us out of the present moment and drags us into a thousand futures that are all on fire.
And we suffer—over and over again—in places we haven’t even been.

But if you pause for just a second…
if you slow your breathing,
anchor yourself to the here and now,
you realize:
right now, you are okay.
Right now, you are breathing.
Right now, you have survived everything you once thought you couldn’t.

Right now, reality is softer than the fear inside your head.

It doesn’t mean the future isn’t uncertain.
It doesn’t mean life won’t bring hardships.
It just means that you don’t have to live them twice—once in dread, once in reality.
It means you have the power to stop carrying tomorrow’s weight on today’s shoulders.

You were never meant to fight battles that don’t exist yet.
You were never meant to grieve losses that haven’t happened.
You were never meant to punish yourself with “what ifs” before life has even asked you to be strong.

Courage is not found in the absence of fear.
Courage is found in refusing to be ruled by the stories fear tries to tell.
It’s the quiet choice to stay in the moment.
To trust that you’ll cross tomorrow’s bridges when you get to them—not before.

The truth is: most of the time, the present moment is more merciful than the future we fear.
Most of the time, the now is filled with more grace than our anxious minds would have us believe.

You are not your imagined disasters.
You are not your worst-case scenarios.
You are not the fear that tries to hijack your peace.

You are still here.
Still breathing.
Still standing in a reality that, while not perfect, is still survivable.
Still beautiful.
Still unfolding.

Come back.
Back to now.
Back to the ground under your feet.
Back to the breath in your lungs.
Let tomorrow be tomorrow.
Let today be today.

You don't have to suffer twice.
You don't have to live inside fears that may never become real.

You are stronger than the stories.
You are softer than the fear.
You are freer than you know.