Do not add to it
Six months ago, a friend sent me a birthday postcard. Besides the congratulations for my birthday it held a sentence in Latin which translated to “a wise man accepts his pain, endures it, but does not add to it.”
It might seem like an odd message for a birthday card, but just a few weeks earlier, we had attended Ryan Holiday Live in Rotterdam: The Stoic Life.
The phrase “Do not add to it” is often attributed to Marcus Aurelius, the Roman emperor and philosopher. It’s a Stoic approach to handling emotions. It’s not the misery itself that hurts, but your decision to feel miserable. Whether the pain is real or imagined, you can choose to accept it or to make it worse.
Big words, but in practice I find it can be applied to the little things. When waking up after a bad night of sleep (four little kids, what are the odds?) my first reaction is to worry about my energy for the day. However, the moment I decide not to worry about it, I feel better already.
Need to make a difficult call at work? Procrastinating will give you plenty of time to get really nervous. Choose not to resist. Just make the call.
Said something stupid? Replaying it over and over? The moment is over. You’re choosing to relive the embarrassment. Let it go. Don’t add to it.
Another way of interpreting the quote was later shared by that same friend in a formula: suffering = pain * resistance. In other words, when we meet pain without resistance, we suffer less.
No matter how you remember the idea, I find it a helpful concept to remind myself about at times. Thanks for the card!