The one thing we all do when we’re so caught up in our heads is that we create a reality that hasn’t or will never come into being! You talk to yourself in your brain and convince yourself of the certainty that the thing you’re anticipating will be a particular way.
Oh, he’s going to be so hard to deal with. It’s going to be a pain to get there. Traffic will be terrible. What if they hate what I’m wearing. My hair isn’t going to be the same length by then. I’ve put on weight since I saw them last — they’re going to say something.
You create an infinite amount of imagined futures, only one of which can ever actually eventuate.
When you live in your head like this, two things happen:
- You build up stress hormones in your body, like cortisol, compounding until the event itself takes place. More cortisol leads to more stress, more bad health, more tension, bad digestion, inflammation, and a litany of other ailments.
- You rob yourself of living in the moment, being present and enjoying what you have now. You can’t control the future. Worrying about it does nothing to change it.
It isn’t unusual. We all do it. We catastrophize a future that we fear for one reason or another. We blow it out of proportion… and guess what?
9 times out of 10, you’re wrong. The future you anticipated doesn’t happen. All of your worrying was for nothing. But you’ll never get that time back.
So worry less, live more!
Do not anticipate trouble or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight.
Benjamin Franklin
Kenrick Vaz 