Half Empty

I like to say that I'm an optimistic pessimist.  I'm always waiting for something to go wrong, for the other shoe to drop.  But I also hold onto a glimmer of hope that maybe I'll be wrong and something good will happen, and I always believe that only good things will happen to people I care about.  If you're going for a job interview -- friend, you're gonna get it!  Having a test?  It's nothing, it's nothing at all, you'll be fine.  It's just me that travels under a black cloud.  If this were The Brady Bunch, I'd cast myself as Oliver the jinx.

And yet I don't live under any black cloud.  And I'm not a jinx.  Bad things happen to people, even me.  Good things happen to people, even me.  Why should I be any different? 

So why do I think that way? 

It's certainly not a particularly uplifting way to spend my days.  And it's certainly not smart or efficient, and I like to think that I'm both of those things.  As Michael J. Fox (who by the way, has real problems to worry about) said, "If you get caught up in [thinking about] the worst case scenario and it doesn't happen, then you've wasted your time. If you get caught up in the worst case scenario and it does happen, you've lived it twice."

Yeah, that doesn't sound very smart or efficient, and, given the choice, I'd rather live the worst case scenario once, thank you very much.

Obsessing does have its benefits.  I've put my free time to work solving problems I don't have that I pray I never will, but, if I am ever in the position, I'll be ready.  If you went through the bookmarks on my computer, you'd think I have every major illness and problem known to man.  Being ready, so to speak, makes me feel a bit better.  But I sometimes wonder, what if I could harness all of that mental obsessing and worrying into something good?  Like, I don't know, curing cancer, or, say, solving the problems I actually have.

Now there's a thought.  I could solve the problems I actually have, you know, like why I spend so much time worrying about problems I don't have.

I read that, if you are plagued with worries, set aside a window of time each day or each week where you will do nothing but worry.  And if you find yourself worrying or obsessing at any other time, you're supposed to tell yourself, "Not now, you get to worry Tuesday from 11 to 11:15."

It sounds like it could work, but what if a meteor strikes Earth precisely in that window?

Sounds like something else to worry about.