“I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened”

Mark Twain

Certainly feels like they have though right?

I’ve never stopped and thought about how many troubles I’ve actually had in the past. It just seems like they’ve been a part of my life, as I’m certain they are for most people

But reading that quote from Twain made me think a bit more about what those troubles actually were. It made me realize the more I tried to define problems in my past, the more I realized they never really existed anyways. It was just periods of times my own mind created anxiety about things that could happen, induced me to stress and work, until it rationalized itself out of the trouble. As an observer, it’s easy to see the anxiety was irrational to begin with (and if not, at least unimportant).

Troubles do exist, of course. But I’m willing to bet most of us call some time troubled without even realizing whether the trouble was outside of us or just something inside of us. It can leave your eyes open when you try to dig deep into that time.

I’m sure most of us wouldn’t like meaningless troubles. Let’s see what we can do about not living those that aren’t actually happening, as an observer.