Tomorrow’s Troubles

Before you buy a house you have an inspector walk through it. Before you have a child you do copious amounts of planning. Before you go on a long road trip you get your oil changed and check your tire pressure. Big events can be stressful but there are always measurable actions that can be put in place to set yourself up for success and mitigate the risk of things going wrong. So that leaves the question, why is it that we still get stressed over things that are outside our control?

Rather than closing your eyes and blindly hoping for the best, come what may, it is more beneficial to do your best to carefully and thoughtfully prepare for the road ahead. Make a plan, execute it, then deal with what cards are dealt to you. So many people pre-stress and freak out about things that are beyond their control. For example; there is a tornado warning. The actionable plan is to go to a cellar (where you keep water, flashlights, and some trail mix) then stay put until the storm has passed. If anything happens you have insurance so you are covered. Within this there is rational fear however knowing that you have done everything you can creates a blanket of safety around the situation. The irrational fear comes from falling to the floor in the moment frozen by fear crawling in a ball and crying until the storm passes. Either one of two things will happen, the Tornado will come but you will be safe with insurance to recover or the tornado never comes at all and you have created unnecessary stress about something for no reasonable reason.

Not bringing tomorrow’s troubles onto today means learning to trust yourself. Trust yourself enough to put faith in the decisions you have previously made as a protection around a future potential situation. For example, insurance, health care, emergency contact information … etc. Know and understand your decision making process enough to believe that you have made the right call, then it is important again to have enough faith in the future you to know that if things go south you can handle it when it comes time.

The moral of the story is that when you bring tomorrow’s troubles onto today you are forced to live it twice. Rather than letting yourself live in a constant state of fear you can set up realistic goals/expectations around how to handle large events with potential stress factors then trust both your past and future self to deal with them appropriately. Stop bringing tomorrow’s troubles onto today because it genuinely has no beneficial effect either way.