Relax
Because why not?
I worry about many things.
I worry about myself, who I am, who I’m becoming, whether those two people are even in the same group chat. Something you may have noticed in my previous posts dear Cabinets. I worry about my expectations, which seem to grow legs and run ahead of me like they’re training for the Olympics. I worry about my country, about the war, about the prices of everything which, at this point, feel like they’re doing their own version of a gym transformation arc.
And then, just to keep things balanced, I worry about the war again.
It’s almost impressive, really. The range.
I worry about my career too. Not just where it’s going, but whether it has a sense of direction at all. Some days it feels like a well-planned journey. Other days it feels like I opened Google Maps and it simply said, “good luck.”
And yet, and this is the part that makes everything slightly ridiculous, I have seen things get better.
Not once. Not by accident. But consistently, in that quiet way life tends to improve when you give it enough time. Problems that once felt permanent slowly became manageable. Situations that seemed impossible eventually shifted, sometimes without me even noticing when the change began.
Which raises an uncomfortable question:
if things have a track record of working themselves out… what exactly am I doing with all this worrying?
Because worry, if you really look at it, is a full-time job that pays absolutely nothing. No benefits. No promotion. Just vibes. Bad vibes.
And I am, apparently, an overachiever.
There is something almost comedic about the way the mind works. It takes a situation that has not happened, may never happen, and treats it like a scheduled event. As though somewhere in the future, disaster has already sent a calendar invite and you are just preparing accordingly.
“Hey, just checking. Are we still panicking about something that doesn’t exist yet?”
“Yes. Yes we are.”
Sometimes I think my brain deserves an award. Not for peace, not for clarity but for creativity. Because the scenarios it comes up with? Incredible. Cinematic, even (Kowo would describe as “Absolute cinema” the things that go on in my head). If anxiety could be monetized, I would be doing very well for myself.
And yet, beneath all the exaggeration, there is something more human.
Worry often feels like control. Like if you think about something long enough, hard enough, you are somehow preparing for it. As though anticipation itself is a form of protection.
But most of the time, it isn’t.
Most of the time, it is just repetition. The same thoughts, dressed in slightly different outfits, showing up again and again like they forgot they were already here.
And life, meanwhile, continues.
Things shift. People grow. Circumstances change in ways you could not have predicted, no matter how much you worried in advance. And when you look back, you rarely think, “I’m so glad I spent all that time being anxious.”
If anything, it feels like time you could have used differently.
Not necessarily to be productive. Not to “fix” everything. But simply to exist without carrying the weight of things that have not yet arrived.
There is a kind of quiet irony in all of this.
The version of you in the future, the one you are worrying about is probably doing just fine. Figuring things out in real time, the same way you always have. Adjusting. Adapting. Moving forward, even if it is not in a straight line.
And here you are, in the present, losing sleep on their behalf.
It would be funny if it wasn’t so familiar.
So maybe the shift is not to stop worrying entirely. That might be unrealistic. The mind will always try. It’s part of its job description.
But maybe the shift is to notice it.
To catch yourself mid-spiral and think, “ah, we’re doing this again.”
To laugh, just a little, at the theatrics of it all.
To remember, gently, that you have been here before and things, somehow, found their way into something better.
Because if history has taught you anything, it is this:
You tend to survive the things you think will ruin you.
You tend to adapt to the things you think you can’t handle.
And more often than not, life moves forward whether you worry about it or not.
Which makes all this worrying feel a bit like shouting instructions at a movie that has already been filmed.
Entertaining, perhaps.
But ultimately,
unnecessary.