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I was perusing the paper today and came across the Saturday book reviews. Sometimes the headline catches my curiosity. In this case, the headline was “Imagination versus Reality.” The tag line to it was ‘Author’s personal experience of uncertainty is the foundation for ‘A Love Affair with the Unknown.’

I was hooked and read the review. Do we suffer more in imagination than in reality?

I came across another good bumper sticker to add to my coping tools. ‘If I can’t change what is happening, I must change how I think about what’s happening.’

The book’s succinct focus began as a look at how to deal with the uncertainties of the current times. Serious health issues arrived, and the author had an all-too-real road of life-threatening uncertainties to sharpen her focus even more.

She addressed the relationship between anxiety and uncertainty. Anxiety is a way to impose a storyline on our uncertainties. Uncertainty can be paralyzing.

I have tried, in my life, to live with reality rather than let my imagination take over. I’ve been successful most of the time, but not always. Sometime ago, I had a swelling on one side of my body but not the other. It was a hard, roundish lump. This was not ok. I couldn’t see the doctor right away, as I couldn’t even make an appointment for three days.

It was a very uncertain time for me. But I fell back on my bumper sticker, which reminded me to live in reality rather than in my overactive imagination. I kept telling myself I didn’t know what it was. It could be life-threatening or benign. I didn’t know. I had no reason to pick the worst uncertainty to worry over. They were weighted equally, given the nature of the uncertainty. So I took what action I could to achieve less uncertainty. The call to make the appointment was answered by an automated response stating they were closed and to call after the weekend.

I will remember to call on Monday. The first three words are a trigger to set up a reminder on my phone. is a trigger. Then, into my self-talk to reassure myself that I had done everything I wanted to do to reduce the uncertainty. I was able to put the issue out of my mind, knowing I’d be reminded on Monday to take action.

I stayed calm and relaxed. I sleep well and generally don’t think about my lump. I’m still in the middle of this process, so I can’t tell you in this Blog how things worked out

Don’t you worry. I’m not.

Please give this a bit of a think. On a scale of 1-10, how much of a worrier are you? How could you take control and lower that number? What is a situation in which you took control of your thoughts and changed how you thought about it? How did you change your storyline?

Please comment by sending me an email with your bit of a think. I am curious about your thoughts.

Photo by Kenny Eliason on Unsplash

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glenn.walmsley@icloud.com