Premeditatio malorum – the premeditation of evils

Death.
The end of everything.
For some a dreaded ordeal, for others merely the end. Without fear, without apprehension.

Memento Mori is a concept that reminds you that you can leave this world at any time, tomorrow or until old age catches up with you. Memento Mori invites you to be humble and connect with the present moment.

Premeditatio malorum, or "the premeditation of evils", means that you imagine all the difficulties that could arise in a project you're undertaking, as well as the misfortunes that could one day overshadow your journey.

It's an exercise.

It's an exercise in which you mentally project yourself into a future in which sad events occur. In this future, you imagine that your children are sick, that your wife or husband has left you, that you have been fired from your job. You have problems filling the fridge and can no longer go away for the weekend like you used to.

In this premeditation of evils, big and small trials follow one another.

The purpose of these imaginary projections is to prepare you emotionally and mentally for the difficulties to come. Because things never turn out exactly as you expect them to. Failure and misfortune are an unfortunate part of life; or fortunately, because you now know - remember the love for the Whole that we studied earlier in this course - that all is well in the course of your destiny.

Please don't take this
the wrong way:

it's not about being negative and feeding your pessimism. It's about taking a realistic view of the future. The premeditation of evils is merely an exercise in ataraxia ¹; BUT it's not about being pessimistic. Don't delude yourself.

Envisioning a future in which you cannot realize your dreams may not be very pleasant, but the opposite is sometimes even more difficult. If you have hoped for an ideal situation all your life and that dream shatters before your eyes, a whole illusory hope collapses.

But this hope was just a fantasy.
Don't let it blind you.

This idea may have nourished you for a while.
And yes,
willpower is the first driving force behind everything. But a tempered vision, where the engine of desire is constantly balanced by the vision of a scenario that wouldn't be so favorable to you, is the only way to get a glimpse of your future.

Thinking this way is the solution to evil. It means always having a "reserve clause".

Just sit down somewhere and imagine all these things. Imagine them not as the inevitable outcome of events, but as one of the possible outcomes. One of the possibilities that certain future things that are entangled in the ball of fate won't turn out the way you want them to.

So think about how things could go wrong, not just through a spiritual practice like meditation, but through a realistic mindset that you cultivate at all times. Make this concept part of your future perspective.

Expect the worst
_means not being
__disappointed
___when misfortune strikes.