Stick with the facts: the stoic case against catastrophising

Executive overview

The mind habitually adds layers of interpretation onto raw events — turning a cough into a crisis, a harsh word into a verdict on your worth. Marcus Aurelius offers a corrective: stay with the initial impression only. Don't add to it.

Stop at the surface. The extra suffering is self-generated.

Actions reveal the philosopher, not labels

• Epictetus taught that no one should call themselves a philosopher — character is shown through action.
• Cato wrote no philosophy but was regarded as one of the greatest stoics.
• Marcus Aurelius never explicitly called himself a stoic, yet lived the philosophy unmistakably.
• Higginson translated Epictetus but proved his stoicism by leading Black troops, championing abolition, and fighting for labour and women's rights.
• The label is irrelevant; the work is what counts.

Staying within first impressions

• Marcus Aurelius: "Don't tell yourself anything more than what the initial impressions report."
• "Someone is speaking badly about you" is the report. "You have been harmed" is an addition.
• "My son is sick" is a fact. "His life is at risk" is an extrapolation.
• The gap between fact and extrapolation is where unnecessary suffering lives.

Why the mind runs ahead

• Parenting makes catastrophising vivid: a fall becomes imagined crying, judgment, failure.
• A sniffle during COVID became a ventilator scenario for many people.
• Psychologists call this catastrophising — the refusal to stay with things as they are.
• Seneca: "We suffer more in imagination than in reality."

The practice

• Additional information will reveal itself in due time — proactiveness that jumps ahead is a liability.
• Marcus elsewhere notes we always have the option to hold no opinion at all.
• The Zen instruction applies: wait and see.
• Stay courageously at the surface; don't run events through the worst-case machine yet.
• Get assumptions in check before the mind races.