May 27, 2025

Bad Things Will Happen

I've always been someone who worries. Constantly. About everything. As my parents will recount, any time the gas tank went below half on a family road trip, I would start asking when we'd be making a pit stop to fuel up. That instinct stuck with me as I grew up. I'd spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about reducing risk—spotting problems early, heading them off.

In some ways my cautiousness has been helpful in life, and I don't really regret being someone who plays it safer than a typical person. But as I've gotten older, I've come to realize that the energy I was spending on reducing risk and imagining things that could go wrong was taking a toll on my mental state.

It's not just me, though. Culturally, we're sold the fantasy that with the right routine, the right mindset, the right app, we can outmaneuver chaos. There's a whole economy around it: planners, trackers, wellness strategies, and productivity tools designed to sand down the sharp edges of life. But life can't be made smooth. It's bumpy, unscripted, and stubbornly unpredictable.

What we're really doing is performing control. We curate rituals and routines not just to stay organized, but to convince ourselves we're in the driver's seat and things are going according to plan. We build detailed calendars, track our moods, drink green vitamin mocktails in the morning, all to signal, "I've got this." It's self-soothing disguised as self-improvement. Control cosplay. And trying to optimize your way out of being human? That might be the most exhausting part of all.

The way that I've been able to somewhat overcome this? Accept that bad things can, and likely will, happen to me. And when I say "bad things," I mean everything from slight inconveniences to major problems. I may step in dog poop at some point. I may suffer a serious injury at some point or lose my job. It could be that none of these things happen, but the power comes in accepting that they might, and that each of these things is at least partially out of my control.

Why is this liberating? Simply put, it allows you to let go of the anxiety around these bad things happening. Brain bothering you about the fact that something may go wrong? No need to concern yourself with it, something probably will go bad. And that's ok. In fact, it's more than ok, it's the nature of a complex human life interacting with hundreds of independent variables each and every day. That's so much more doable than trying to logic your way out of anxiety, which, for me, has never worked. The simplicity is what I find so appealing about this idea.

I know all this. I believe it. And still, I'll feel my chest tighten pulling into a packed lot, realizing I didn't pre-pay for parking because it felt too neurotic. It's not graceful. But that's the thing: this isn't a finish line you reach. It's a muscle. You build it. You forget. You mess up. You start again.

Important distinction: this isn't some stoic call for detachment, and I'm not saying life is just a long string of suffering. I don't believe that. What I do think is that it's surprisingly freeing to stop pretending you can outmaneuver life. You'll miss deadlines, people will flake, your car will break down at the worst time. But knowing that, really accepting it, makes the rest of it easier to enjoy. Walking around on a sunny day. A good meal with other people, or on your own. You stop holding your breath waiting for things to go wrong, and start living, knowing that some of them will. Not in denial. Just with more ease.