As I’ve mentioned before, I was born with the family worry gene. My mother is an Olympic level contender in this regard, able to conjure up nearly any doomsday scenario on the fly, adding “What Ifs” until your bright idea withers and dies on the vine right before your very eyes.
It’s never intentional. She is just a worrier. Not only does she worry about her own life, but those of every one of her children, grandchildren and now, great grandchildren.
I’m not sure if I acquired the worry gene genetically or by osmosis. I just know that it’s always been there. In school, it gave me performance anxiety whenever it came time to make a presentation in front of the class. In the working world, it caused me no end of problems and is probably the cause of my employment retardation over the years.
That’s because I would show up for an interview already filled with “What Ifs?” What if I don’t get the job? What if they ask me a question that I don’t have a good answer to? What if I get the job and can’t do it? What if my new boss sucks? What if I get fired?
By the time I was finally called into the interview, I was a nervous wreck, my mind overflowing with What If scenarios of how the moment would play out. That’s how I ended up with a manila folder of rejection letters the size of a small town phone book. I would blow interview after interview because I was so filled with What Ifs that I would begin to literally shake.
This continued on into my relationships. I remember once in Port Orchard worrying about the car. There was nothing wrong with it, mind you, not at the time. But I would still run through the countless What If scenarios about the car. What if it broke down on the highway? What if it needed a lot of expensive engine work suddenly? What if…
I didn’t think about these things all the time, but only because there were so many other What Ifs clogging the arteries of my psyche. What Ifs were everywhere in my life.
Perhaps there were no What Ifs worse than in business. If you’re not watchful, a business can be a What If panacea. What If no one hires us? What If receivables run out? What If a client sues us for a mistake we made? What If we get too much work and can’t handle it all? What if someone hates something we did? What If the IRS wants to audit us? What If…
As you can see, there is no end to What Ifs.
I certainly know this to be the case in my child rearing days. I would What If all day long about my yet to born child. What if he had a disability? What if I was turned out to be a bad father? What if he turned out to be a monster? What if he became a complete loser? The list goes on.
The problem with all these What Ifs is that few if any really happened. And that is the problem with What Ifs; they can rob you of all your risk taking prowess and leave you frozen in time and space, afraid of what might happen rather than what is happening.
This has become obvious recently as the specter of What Ifs have raised its ugly head once again. A major life change is in the offing and the What Ifs are flying all around the little housienda. What Ifs are thick as thieves around here, making this abode a very crowded place indeed.
For instance, the hallway was so crowded with What Ifs that I could barely make it to the bathroom this morning. I had to elbow my way past every What If gathered there. What if I don’t like it there? What if I can’t find a job? What if I end up there all alone? What if you went first and I didn’t come until later. What if…
The problem with What Ifs in your life is that there are no real answers. There are only questions, questions that may never ever have an answer because they simply aren’t relevant or they never came to pass.
Now, I’m not a big fan of reality. In fact, I think some of my friends will suggest that I run the other way whenever I am faced with it. This could be true. But the slippery slope here is that What Ifs aren’t real. They are simply possibilities, some more possible than others, but none of them are tangible.
I think the reason it’s so tempting to play What If is because we are dazzled by the distractions these possibilities provide. In many respects, they are easier to deal with than the realities that exist near term. That’s because they aren’t really part of our life, but rather glimpses of alternate futures, and they can be very frightening as well as very seductive.
If you think about it, you already know this. Who hasn’t dreamed of what they would do with a winning lottery ticket? What if I won the lottery? I could ___________ (feel free to fill in the blank with your own What If scenarios).
The problem with What Ifs is that 99.95% of them never happen in your life, yet they can consume 99.95% of your time thinking about them. They are dangerous indulgences.
So, how did I finally beat the What If Game? I decided to stop looking so far down the road because the farther you look, the more What Ifs appear. People laugh when I say I make things up as I go, but it sure beats all the What Ifs that were leading to paralysis by pseudo analysis.
What Ifs are great if you’re a crisis manager. But if you’re an ordinary person, they can be toxic. Don’t indulge in them. Reject them at every opportunity.
Out on the Treasure Coast, trying to get all these What If revelers out of my damned house so I can use the john,
– Robb