Sometimes Terrible Things Happen

There’s a quote often attributed to Mark Twain:

“I’ve had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened.”

I first heard some version of that quote when I was a newly promoted Corporal and sent away on a supervisory course.

I can’t say I took away a great deal about supervising (sorry to whoever taught the course) but that quote stayed with me.

The instructor shared it during a discussion about decision-making.

We all wanted to make good decisions. But we would agonize over them.

What if I do this?

What if I do that?

What if I make the wrong decision?

What if something terrible happens because of it?

As a newly promoted supervisor, I remember sometimes feeling physically sick about the responsibility. Until then, I could always fall back on one comforting explanation:

It was the boss’s decision.

Except now I was the boss. And the decision was mine.

I chewed on that quote for a long time because I eventually realized it wasn't just about leadership or decision-making.

It was about how I had lived much of my life. I have an incredible ability to manufacture anxiety entirely inside my own head. I can lie awake at night and run through scenario after scenario, usually gravitating toward the worst possible outcome.

And for years, I convinced myself there was a perfectly rational reason for doing it.

I was preparing.

If I could imagine the terrible thing happening, I could figure out what I would do if it did.

If I could map out the tragedy, maybe I could map out my response.

Maybe somehow imagining it would make me more prepared to survive it.

Those thoughts followed me into policing, where terrible things weren't hypothetical. I saw them happen to people every day.

Then they followed me into parenthood, where suddenly there were people I loved so deeply that the possibilities became even darker.

Loss. Illness. Accidents. Tragedy.

Sometimes I would lie awake imagining something happening to someone I loved so vividly that I could feel my heart pounding. There were times I would find myself shaking, tears running down my face.

Nothing had happened. Everyone I loved was safe. I was lying in my own bed. But my body didn't seem to care about the distinction. And that, it turns out, is something psychology understands reasonably well.

The American Psychological Association describes anxiety as a future-oriented response to a perceived threat. There is even a term for what I was doing: anticipatory anxiety, worry or apprehension about something that might happen in the future.

Research has also examined something called intolerance of uncertainty, our difficulty accepting that we simply don't know what is going to happen. It is strongly connected to worry and repetitive negative thinking.

In other words, sometimes the brain tries to solve uncertainty by thinking harder about it. But thinking harder doesn't necessarily make us safer. Sometimes it just makes us suffer sooner.

That realization changed the meaning of that old quote for me.

There are enough genuinely painful things that happen in a human life. We will experience loss. People we love will get sick. Relationships will end. Careers will change. Parents will die. Unexpected phone calls will come.

We don't need to experience those moments twice. Once in our imagination. And then again if they actually happen.

I still struggle with this. My anxiety isn't usually about crowds, public speaking, going outside or even heights anymore. Mine is largely manufactured by my own mind.

I see things happening in the world and immediately begin wondering:

What if that happens to me?

What if that happens to someone I love?

What would I do?

And before I know it, something happening to somebody, somewhere, has become a tragedy playing out in my own head. The strange thing is that we do this because we think worry is protecting us.

But there is a difference between preparation and suffering in advance.

Preparation asks:

Is there something useful I can do about this right now?

If there is, do it.

Suffering in advance asks:

What if?

And then answers that question with every terrible possibility our imagination can produce.

I was reminded of all of this last week. For several days, I became consumed with fear that something very bad was going to happen. I thought about it constantly.

I played out the scenarios. I anticipated the consequences. I exhausted myself. Three days later, the terrible thing had still not happened. So I went for a walk.

And somewhere along that walk I remembered that quote from a supervisory course decades ago.

I repeated it to myself.

Again.

And again.

And gradually I felt myself becoming a little more at ease. Nothing about the future had changed.

I had.

I stopped demanding certainty about something I couldn't control and returned to the life that was actually happening around me.

That's the lesson I needed last week, and maybe someone else needs it today. Life is remarkable.

It is also fragile. Bad things happen. Pain comes. Loss comes. There will be moments in our lives that we cannot prepare ourselves for no matter how many times we rehearse them in our minds.

We will deal with those moments when they arrive. But they haven't arrived today.

So don't surrender today's peace to tomorrow's possibilities. Don't experience a tragedy that hasn't happened. And most importantly:

Don't ruin the amazing moments of your life waiting for what may—or may not—come.