Uncertainty about the future
Waiting to find out
A result is coming and you cannot bring it closer. An interview, a scan, an offer, an answer from someone who has not replied. Meanwhile you are living the outcome in advance, several versions of it, and none of them has happened.
Marcus spent much of his reign waiting for news from a frontier weeks away. The passages below are what he wrote to himself about it. They do not promise that things will turn out well. They are about where the waiting is being spent.
Marcus Aurelius
Let not future things disturb thee, for thou wilt come to them, if it shall be necessary, having with thee the same reason which now thou usest for present things.
The line most often quoted from him on this, and worth reading slowly. The future is not met by a lesser version of you. Whatever arrives, you will meet it with the reason you have now, which is all you would have then. The worry borrows trouble from a moment that will bring its own means of bearing it.
Marcus Aurelius
Do not disturb thyself by thinking of the whole of thy life. Let not thy thoughts at once embrace all the various troubles which thou mayest expect to befall thee: but on every occasion ask thyself, What is there in this which is intolerable and past bearing? For thou wilt be ashamed to confess. In the next place remember that neither the future nor the past pains thee, but only the present. But this is reduced to a very little, if thou only circumscribest it, and chidest thy mind, if it is unable to hold out against even this.
Here he narrows the thing to be borne. Not the whole of your life, not every trouble that might befall you, but this occasion, and of this occasion only what is actually here. Ask what in it is past bearing, he says, and you will be ashamed to answer, because cut down to the present it is usually small.
Marcus Aurelius
What need is there of suspicious fear, since it is in thy power to inquire what ought to be done? And if thou seest clear, go by this way content, without turning back: but if thou dost not see clear, stop and take the best advisers. But if any other things oppose thee, go on according to thy powers with due consideration, keeping to that which appears to be just. For it is best to reach this object, and if thou dost fail, let thy failure be in attempting this. He who follows reason in all things is both tranquil and active at the same time, and also cheerful and collected.
The third turns from waiting to acting. If there is something to be done and the way is clear, do it. If the way is not clear, stop and ask someone. What he leaves out is the option the waiting mind prefers: neither acting nor asking but rehearsing.
One question
What, of everything you are carrying about this, has actually been reported so far?
Meditations is quoted from George Long's translation of 1862, which is in the public domain. The passages are chosen by hand, shown as written, and never paraphrased.