Quantifying Worry

The noise feels immutable, and I systematically try to enter all the different outcomes into a cerebral excel spreadsheet. I am looking at each possible outcome and evaluating its significance and probability. The development of a hypothesis allows me to compare my intuition against my historical outcomes. As I scroll to the right side of demanding data, my past experiences are recorded, rejected: ?. Subcategories include lack of qualification, overuse of emotion, lack of emotion, being too quiet, not wearing makeup, and the never-ending factors I try to quantify.  Based on the contrast of data and how I attach my expectation to this conclusion, I make conclusions based on falsehood. Falsehoods flood and flourish in the crannies of our insecurities and form into worry. 

The world in which worry exists is only a fake projection of the future. The list of possible outcomes is impossible to quantify, but we persist on. We are making up faking scenarios in which we find that we are the victim. There is power in our past, but the past can not be used to try to predict the future. The version of ourselves from the past is far different from the person you are this very second. We are soldiers, preparing ourselves for battles over conflict that hasn’t happened. 

As a human, I struggle with what I do not know, almost more than with what I do know to be true. As humans, we stand in the grey in-between place and cast shadows to frighten ourselves into the world of worries. We cast our eyes down into our cell phones, swipe, and try to distract ourselves from the suffering we have created for ourselves in a false world. 

False reality comfortably lies on the basis of assumptions. I make assumptions about how I will be treated or if I will be rejected. We desire to crawl inside the minds of other people to control how they treat us. We try to prepare ourselves for the worst when the worst isn’t even on the horizon. The assumptions that we make about the future are a mental movie where we watch ourselves fail or triumph, and we get attached to this scenario. Even if the premise is for the best, we often disappoint ourselves because we created a reality where only an assumption and false project could be valid. 

The avoidance of assumptions will bring peace. The mental noise will drop, and the present will clarify with the now’s concreteness of life. The world proves to us every day that it is ever-changing and lacks a permanent nature. Acceptance in this change will accept that we cannot predict the future because what we know could suddenly shift into what we now see as unrecognizable. Acknowledgment of the brain’s tendency to try and predict the end allows us to observe the mental noise without giving into it. 

I am not advocating for a rough ridge world where we do not have hopes and dreams for our futures. I am an advocate for the present and the now. There is so much that we will never know, especially what other people are thinking. Humans are far more complex than their relation to you; they have past experiences that affect their emotions and decisions that we will never understand. Asking questions can eliminate the questioning and false answers. Even if the answers aren’t the desired result, at least you are in the now and the beauty of reality. 

Gratitude for what is, grounds us in the now and destroys our world of assumptions. Slowing your pace and seeing all the blessings that grace us in that present moment. Dive into the now and dismantle the machine that has to know everything. Accept what we do not know, and be grateful for what we have.

• anxiety
• overcoming obstacles
• worry
• worrying