Future Events as Indifferents
This week you are going to study a concept the Stoics called "indifferents" (in Greek, "adiaphora," meaning things that are neither good nor bad in themselves) as they apply specifically to the future. A future event, whether illness, loss, failure, or death, is not good or evil on its own; only your judgment about it makes it so. That single insight is the key to understanding Stoic anxiety: you suffer not because bad things are coming, but because you treat uncertain future events as if they were already confirmed evils. This week you will learn to see future events clearly for what they are, and find out what that means for the fear and worry you carry every day.
Passage
Instead of avoiding the fear of it, shall I die in lamentation and trembling? For the origin of sorrow is this—to wish for something that does not come to pass.
— Epictetus, Discourses 1.27.10
Reflection
Epictetus cuts to the root. Sorrow and fear both begin in the same place: wishing for something that may not come to pass. This connects directly to the idea of future events as indifferents. An indifferent is not something you cannot want or prefer; the Stoics were clear that preferring health to sickness is perfectly reasonable. The problem is wishing, in the strong sense of needing the outcome to be a certain way. When you need the future to cooperate in order to be okay, every uncertain event becomes a potential source of suffering. The shift Epictetus is pointing toward is from 'needing' outcomes to 'preferring' them while remaining stable if they do not arrive.
Go deeper
Where in your life are you treating a reasonable preference as if it were a need, something you cannot be okay without?
Practice
Preference vs. Need
Think of something you are anxious about today. Write it down, then finish these two sentences: 'I need this to go a certain way because...' and 'I prefer this to go a certain way, and if it does not, I can...' The second sentence will probably be harder. Sit with the difficulty. You are practising the distinction Epictetus is drawing between a wish that destabilises you and a preference that does not.