There was once a time when I felt like if I worried about something, I’d somehow be easing the situation in some way. I think it was this sense that the paranoid hyper-alert feeling that comes with obsessively worrying about something would help me catch some important detail or not let something slip.

Sure, there are things I worry about, still. But it’s a lot better than before. And I think a lot of it comes down to understanding that worrying doesn’t actually do anything.

That sense of hyper-alertness isn’t real. It’s like being super buzzed on caffeine. You feel awake, but you’re not. You feel like you’re sharper, but you’re not. It’s all a delusion. I think the same is true when you’re worrying. Yes, when you’re worrying, you often sweat the details. You try to cross every t and dot every i. But you can also be diligent and calm, and do the same thing even better. Being calm isn’t “not caring”, it’s simply not being worried, and because you’re in a more focused mental state, it’s actually easier to understand and react to things.

In some ways, the way I think about a lot of things now is, “Everything has already happened.”

A friend recently had cancer surgery. It was big, invasive, scary, life-threatening as any large surgery is. But in some ways, everything that needed to happen had already happened. They’d found great doctors. They’d done the necessary scans. The cancer was already there. The doctors had already practiced as much as they possibly could, and whatever preparations would be made… nothing I could think or do would make any difference. Ei-Nyung stepped up to be the “in-person” support, and so she had a lot of things she could do, and then did.

But for me? In the past I’d have been incredibly worried. But now I realized there was nothing for me to do, nothing I could do, and worrying… would simply not do anything. Everything (that needed to happen) has already happened.

There is a time in the past where I’d have been utterly wracked and useless with worry. I’m sure there will be times and situations in the future where I still am. But it’s not just this one incident – it’s showing up more and more in my reactions to things, and it’s not that I care less. It’s not that I’m detached from the situation. It’s simply that I have a better awareness of what I can and cannot actually affect, and the realization that me twisting myself up with worry over what might happen not only doesn’t make things less bad for anyone, it often makes it worse. Not just for me, but for everyone I come into contact with.