I talked about subconsciousness in the previous article (this article). Today, related to that article, I will introduce two approaches to reducing our worries.
How to reduce our worries
Sometimes, we want to reduce our worries. Worry is a future risk for which we have not found a solution. We want to avoid those risks as much as possible. That allows us to prepare for the future. In other words, worrying is necessary for our stable lives.
However, it can also be exhausting because the future state is not foreseeable. We don’t know what the future holds. There are many uncertainties in the future. We cannot predict it completely, no matter how much we try.
In such a case, looking at our worries with the two approaches below might help us. They are based on the perspective of failure. Today, I will explain its way of thinking.
Two approaches to solving our worries
There are two approaches to solving our worries, as follows:
- Preparing for the future by foreseeing
- Believing in a new direction after failure
Perhaps we can combine them at the same time. Let me explain them below.
Preparing for the future by foreseeing
The former is that we prepare as much as possible by floreseeing. The more likely it is to happen, the more helpful our preparation will be.
In other words, having worries means we still have things to suppose and prepare. Although thinking about possibilities we don’t expect is bothersome, it makes the fear disappear. Unknown causes fear, so unveiling and facing them eliminates the fear.
In this state, we are not yet at the stage where we can get depressed because it is a stage of possibility. We focus on the probability of it happening.
It is enough if we can anticipate the general possibilities. Predicting and preparing for 60–80% of the possibilities may be enough.
The remaining 20–40% of the possibilities are tail risks. We can deal with them by leaving flexible resources, such as money or time. We regard them as unexpected troubles.
This range setting will make preparation easier and stop bothering the tail risks.
The occurrence of those tail risks indicates our failure. It means we always assume that we could fail. We leave areas of failure rather than perfect planning. That frees us from stressful trivial possibilities. This is why avoiding perfection reduces our worries.
Believing in a new direction after failure
The latter is believing in a new direction after failure.
If we face an unexpected trouble that we cannot solve soon, we regard it as a failure. Failure is the result of our assumptions differing from reality. It means we misunderstand reality, such as cause and effect, probability, or severity.
In other words, we don’t encounter unexpected and big problems if we go in the right direction.
By seeing it as a failure, we can modify our direction bravely.
We don’t know if we are going in the right direction from the beginning. Even if it is good initially, unexpected troubles that stress us may arise gradually. They are the signals that we need to change our direction.
Emotional upset will not change the direction of life
Try looking at worries from the perspective of failure. That allows us to reconsider our direction in life.
Emotional upset is the most superficial mental work. They are nothing more than social evaluations and small gains or losses.
In other words, no matter how much we worry, we cannot change the direction in life. Worry is a mental system to maintain the current situation.
If we want to change, allowing failure and depression would help us. Every time we experience getting depressed, we can reduce our misunderstandings and lies to ourselves. That gives us honesty and integrity in our lives.
We cannot predict the direction after a failure because it is usually opposite to our current direction. Sometimes, we have to go backward or take a path that looks detour.
We can determine the specific direction after it fails. That recognition will allow us to leave resources and stop worrying about tail risks.
We may be acceptable in any situation
Perhaps we are acceptable in any situation, even if it seems like the worst nightmare now.
I recently read a story in which the heroine lost her loved family. Her family had an enemy trying to kill them. She fought desperately not to lose them. However, she failed to protect her family, and they were all killed.
She got depressed. At first, she didn’t believe it, but after she got her family’s keepsake from the hero and recognized reality, she cried a lot.
After her grief, she accepted their death and was determined to be as strong as the hero to revenge the enemy. She knew the hero had lived in much worse circumstances. That was how she had started her journey with the hero with her own will.
Failure is just the trigger. It never determines our futures. Our new decisions learned from the failure determine our futures.
Conclusion
They are the two approaches to solving our worries.
We can prepare for the future by foreseeing the general possibilities. We can also believe in a new direction after failure when tail risks happen.
This way of thinking might help us to reduce worries about the future.
Thank you for reading this article. I hope to see you in the next one.
