A note for anyone who is worrying about something you can’t do anything about right now
It’s 1 am and I really want to have lunch. Back home, it’s the perfect time for a sandwich, but here in Singapore it’s the middle of the night. I’m wide awake thinking about the work I will begin tomorrow with a group of veterinary medical directors from Singapore, Hong Kong, and Thailand.
This is an opportunity I’ve looked forward to for over a year, and now I’m imagining everything that could go wrong. Catastrophizing is a game I’m quite good at, and it appears that I have purchased the travel version.
What if I got COVID on the flight over and will wake up tomorrow with a fever? What if I say something that is normal in America but wildly offensive in Asia (This happened to me once in the UK. I’m still mortified.) What if I accidentally break some unknown law on the way to my session and end up in Singapore prison? What if the things I have come to teach simply don’t translate to wildly different cultures? What if the medical directors don’t like my outfit? The list goes on.
You would think that doing projects like this all over the world for almost a decade would allow me to simply dismiss these thoughts, relax, and look forward to getting started. You would be wrong.
I have learned a lot about handling anxiety though, and what I am remembering tonight is that telling myself not to worry is basically pointless. I’ve never been able to tell my brain not to do anything. My mind is a lot of things, but obedient is not one of them.
The trick that works best for me is to decide what I do want to focus on, and then to pour myself into that. My brain is a lot like a puppy in this regard. My best chance of keeping it out of trouble is providing a suitable distraction. One of my favorite expressions is “life is what you focus on,” and tonight I refuse to let my life be apprehension.
So now I’m focusing on finishing this email to you, my friend. When I’m done, I’m going to focus on hoping and wondering if this will be helpful to you in some way. Then I’m going to focus on falling back asleep so I can hit the hotel breakfast buffet when I wake up.
And now I’m focusing on buffet breakfast and looking forward to getting up and going tomorrow. This is all going to be fantastic.
Your jetlagged friend,
Andy
