The Stoic Philosopher Seneca said that we suffer more in our imagination than we ever do in reality.
Real true suffering is grief and mourning following the loss of life, or financial, health and relationship crisis’. We all face such pain. Most work on moving on and recovering. We wear our resilience as a badge of honor. Such suffering can be devastating but is usually a challenge of our fortitude and resolve.
The pain from WORRY however, is often unmanageable and inconsolable. You see it is all imaginary and left to our ability to project outcomes. We tend to fear the worst and it usually never comes to pass, or at least nowhere near as brutal as our expectation. By living with the uncertainty, as opposed to the definitive outcome of grief, we allow the perceived impact to increase exponentially until we have a fixed result. Our mind and emotions not able to discern fiction from reality; we suffer needlessly at the behest of our imagination.
When facing difficulties it is always best to plan for the best outcome we can imagine and avoid such unnecessary struggles.