“The unexamined life is not worth living” — Socrates
A lot of people have the fear of the unknown. This includes myself; it’s not so bad now but it’s definitely not something I’ve missed out on. So what’s the solution to it, what’s the workaround?
Well, like so many other things in life, the only way out is through. The only way to make the unknown known is to do whatever it is you’re scared of. The best example I can think of is asking someone out. You could spend weeks on end wondering how they might react. “Will they feel the same way? Will they reject me? If they do, will they tell all their friends and ruin my reputation? Wait, but maybe they’ll feel the same way… I shouldn’t be getting off track and letting those things come at my mind…”
As you can see, it’s extremely easy to succumb to the process of overbearing thought. In this case the solution would be to tell the person how you feel. Then they give a reaction, and only then can you properly solve any problems that come up. Otherwise you waste time with guess work. Plus for all you know, things could go perfectly… you never know until you try.
So hey to get a little bit back on track, let’s ask another question. How an this apply to everyday life? Well, first we must consider what we spend most of our time doing, and that’s thinking. Thinking about what could happen, how we could solve a problem, how something might turn out… many things that happen throughout the day. But the things that make the biggest impact on our mindset and personality are the things we think about first thing in the morning and right before we fall asleep — typically anything but the present. We already discussed that anxiety of what’s to come can be overcome by moving over, around, or most importantly THROUGH a brick wall, but we didn’t talk about the past.
The past is a tricky idea. It has the ability to drag us underneath dark shadows and pull us to our absolute lowest point because it has the weapon of regret. There’s a million different ways to combat this, but the way that I’ve found works best for me is to remind myself that those events happened to/with a past version of myself. If we think in 4 dimensions, we recognize that that version of ourselves is part of us, but doesn’t represent who we are now.
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