Reflection: rehearsing the future

Worry feels like preparation. That is the trick of it.

Running the bad outcome again tonight will not make you readier for it than running it once did, and you have already run it once. The fourteenth rehearsal is not planning. It is the mind mistaking motion for progress, because sitting still with an unanswered question is harder than pacing.

A test worth applying: is there an action? If there is — a call to make, a number to check, a bag to pack — the worry has done its job, and you can thank it and go do the thing. If there isn't, then nothing further is being accomplished, and the only question left is what you would like to do with the hours between now and knowing.

Most of what we fear arrives differently than rehearsed, or not at all. Neither of those is a reason to stop caring. It is only a reason to stop paying tomorrow's price twice.

Written for this collection.

About this passageWritten for this collection. It describes a habit rather than prescribing a cure, and assumes no belief on the reader's part.

Filed underanxietyfutureattention

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https://github.com/Jjzme2/peace-finder