Took therapy for me to realize it. They said “You view the world in very binary terms, this will or won’t happen. You are anxious over things like they either will or won’t happen. The world though, isn’t binary. It’s very analog. Focusing on the worst possible outcome is to focus on one out of infinite possibilities that could happen in between. Is it possible? Sure. But it’s not probable that the worst case will happen. Reality and history prove that it’s usually somewhere in between the best and worst cases”
That there just clicked it with me, and made me realize that I had been focusing on the worst case. For me the trigger is climate change, and I used to have to turn off the news to avoid it. Therapy helped, and taught me that while the worst could happen, there are infinite number of outcomes to such a complex problem, and that me panicking over the worst possible case isn’t going to help, and it’s probably not even going to happen.
And it turns out I’ve been right. For that one trigger, there have been changes on both the best and worst cases. The US is going down a very horrid path, but the rest of the world is starting to turn the tide. Solar is only getting better. We’re backwards here, but it’s not backwards everywhere. The absolute worst case scenario probably won’t happen. It’ll probably be somewhere in between best and worst cases.
As time progresses we go further down a decision tree, although not binary as we have a plethora of choices in each node. The best part is that we can make a cut at any time and the tree will fan out again so we can still get back on track to reach most of the end nodes. Nothing is ever lost and nothing will stay the way it is right now forever as well. Best of luck.
Took therapy for me to realize it. They said “You view the world in very binary terms, this will or won’t happen. You are anxious over things like they either will or won’t happen. The world though, isn’t binary. It’s very analog. Focusing on the worst possible outcome is to focus on one out of infinite possibilities that could happen in between. Is it possible? Sure. But it’s not probable that the worst case will happen. Reality and history prove that it’s usually somewhere in between the best and worst cases”
That there just clicked it with me, and made me realize that I had been focusing on the worst case. For me the trigger is climate change, and I used to have to turn off the news to avoid it. Therapy helped, and taught me that while the worst could happen, there are infinite number of outcomes to such a complex problem, and that me panicking over the worst possible case isn’t going to help, and it’s probably not even going to happen.
And it turns out I’ve been right. For that one trigger, there have been changes on both the best and worst cases. The US is going down a very horrid path, but the rest of the world is starting to turn the tide. Solar is only getting better. We’re backwards here, but it’s not backwards everywhere. The absolute worst case scenario probably won’t happen. It’ll probably be somewhere in between best and worst cases.
As time progresses we go further down a decision tree, although not binary as we have a plethora of choices in each node. The best part is that we can make a cut at any time and the tree will fan out again so we can still get back on track to reach most of the end nodes. Nothing is ever lost and nothing will stay the way it is right now forever as well. Best of luck.
Thank you. I needed this today.
Stay strong, friend