A few more thoughts for you about Brian King's The Art of Taking It Easy: the place where I have the most work to do, I think, is in shifting my optimism/pessimism balance. It's true that if you expect the worst you'll rarely be disappointed. There are costs to that approach, however. Optimistic people, King says, don't dwell on what might have been. Negative thoughts enter their minds and pass on through; they don't ruminate. I, my friends, ruminate all the dang time. This is a terrible habit! I could probably take up smoking or perhaps meth and be better off! (maybe not meth)
If I experience something that could have been more dangerous than it was, I think about what could have happened even though it didn't happen. I think about what might happen in the future and I fall into the trap King describes of overestimating the likelihood of the worst-case scenario. I'm not sure he has a very clear sense of what it's like to live inside a worrier brain. At one point he's trying to think of the worst outcome you could experience as a result of being in heavy traffic, and he can't come up with anything. I'm like, "Brian, my dude, you could DIE -- that's the bad outcome and it happens every day." He suggests that I focus on actual less-bad outcomes instead of perseverating on other possibilities (For instance, remember the time that Stella wandered off and got stuck high up in a tree? She got down safely! no harm done! That is not the blog post I wrote, though.) He suggests that I allow possible bad outcomes less space in my head. This is sensible advice -- perhaps obvious advice to those of you who don't tend to worry. It is going to take practice for me.
Some of what he suggests to shift the landscape in one's brain is familiar-- cultivate gratitude, tell the people you love that you love them, laugh frequently. Here's an idea I hadn't encountered: write about a future in which a problem that is weighing on you is resolved exactly as you'd like it to be. Describe everything about that imagined outcome. Try it again the next week, focusing on a different outcome. King says there's some empirical evidence in support of this activity, which trains the brain to think optimistically about distressing situations.
I know exactly which situation I would write about it, and I know most of what I would say. Writing it down feels weirdly risky. Maybe I'll try it and report back.
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