A quote that I have been meditating on recently is one by Seneca: “A man who suffers before it is necessary, suffers more than necessary”.

Seneca is trying to tell us not to spend our time worrying about things in the future. How much of our lives do we spend concerned, anxious, and afraid of future events? “What if I fail this job interview?”, “What if I ask them out and they say no?”, “What if I fail this test?”, “What if we miss the plane?”, “What if, what if, what if…” Our minds are full of these questions and then we spend time agonisingly concocting negative scenarios to answer these questions which fuel the anxiety and negative thoughts. They steal our happiness and our sense of presence. These thoughts fill us with a sense of dread and consume our minds for days, weeks or even months at a time.

Mark Twain (who gets bonus points, as he was also a huge fan of Bermuda like I am) put the above into a far nicer and more concise sentence than I did. “I’ve been through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.” So, how can we stop this? What can we do to prevent these intrusive thoughts eating away at us? Unfortunately, I don’t have a magic answer to stop them happening but one thing that is helping me when these kinds of thoughts occur is to consider the following: Is this in my control? Now if we look deeper at this question, there are three real answers to it. Yes, it’s in my control. No, it’s not in my control. It’s somewhat in my control.

Most things will fall into one of the second two categories. Let’s look at a couple of the scenarios above. “What if I fail this interview?” This is something that is not in your control, no matter how well you come across or how well you prepare, the decision on whether you pass your interview is entirely down to someone else. There are things in your control in this process, but you do not control the final decision. You can control how well you prepare, how you come across (how you dress, the way you articulate yourself). “What if I ask them out and they say no?” This is not in your control. Once again, the outcome of this scenario is controlled by an external factor (the other person). You may have all the most desirable traits in the world, but you still have zero control over whether the other person wants to go out with you. There are things you can do that may or may not help influence the other person, but that decision is still not in your control. You can keep yourself in good physical shape, you can display acts of kindness, and you can attempt to make them laugh. These are all things that you control; however, you do not control how the other person receives these things. For example, they may be indifferent about your personal appearance, they might not appreciate your intended acts of kindness, or they may not find your jokes funny. These are external factors that we can’t control.

Looking at the two scenarios above, we can see that it does not make sense to worry about these hypothetical scenarios. We should focus our time, thoughts and energy on the things that we can control and on the outcomes that we can change. Think of something that has been causing you anxiety lately, and ask yourself: Is it in my control? The likelihood is that it is not in your control; therefore, you should not worry about it. If you focus on the things in your control such as whether you study for the test, leave for the airport in plenty of time, ask that person out, or how you dress for the interview then you can be thankful to yourself for doing what was in your control. We must not attach ourselves to the results of things outside of our control, and by practicing not to attach ourselves to these things we can slowly learn to stop suffering through our thoughts of what may or may not happen.

Hopefully, someone gains some value from my rambling here or at the very least, ponders it for a moment and asks themselves, “Am I worrying about things I can’t control?”

Peace and love everybody, peace and love.