Assuming The Worst

If I had a nickel for every time Sifu Rybak has told me lately to stop assuming the worst of a situation, I’d probably have the total sum of maybe a quarter? Possibly even a quarter and a dime. It doesn’t seem like a lot but, relatively speaking, she’s said it enough times that I can’t keep pretending like she hasn’t said it at all. It’s a pretty inconvenient truth for me, I think. 

A quote from one of my favourite book series growing up was “always expect the worst. That way, when it happens, it won’t be a surprise. It’ll still suck, but atleast you’ll be ready for it”. I was like, 12 when I read this for the first time? I was a very easily influenced preteen boy and as someone who was already struggling with anxiety, it made a lot of sense to me. I really took it to heart; I actively remember, for years afterwards, I would recite that passage to myself every time I realized it was possible for things to go sideways. It was like a shield that made me feel safer when I got in my head, yknow? 

I think there’s some valuable truth behind this, for sure. I would argue that not having some degree of preparedness for things to wrong is a naive approach. But I’ve also began realizing that this motto I abided so closely by from the ages of ~12-15 has done a right good job of messing me up. It didn’t start this way, but over time I’ve reached a point where a combination of anxiety and blindly following the ideal of preparedness has left me assuming the worst of EVERYTHING. 

The quote from my book, it’s only intended to apply to certain scenarios. For examples from my day to day life, stuff such as a demo in Kung Fu or a compliance inspection at work. To be honest, I think this way of thinking has benefited me at a professional when conducting inspections or field work in my career. I still ask myself “what’s the worst that can happen?” before going out and I prepare myself for that type of scenario. If I’m prepared for a worst-case situation, I can handle everything else that comes my way. And it’s true! I believe a lot of my professional success has come from this approach. 

But I’ve taken it too far; I assume the worst of things like a passing remark, a raised eyebrow, a fleeting facial expression, so on and so forth. I can lose sleep over typos in texts to me when the sender doesn’t even realize that their message didn’t get across properly. I HAVE lost sleep over things as silly as typos. It’s happened within the last week (and not for the first time, either). The “shield” I used a decade ago to help alieve some of my anxieties has been reforged into one of the very swords that I needed that shield to protect me from. It’s ironic, isn’t it?

I think the key to overcoming this is confidence and Kung Fu contributes to that greatly. Of course, I still have many occurrences at the Kwoon where I assume the worst, but I am trying to avoiding letting other people get in my head that way. 

Numbers (per last 7)

Pushups;

62-62-93-31-160-31-62

Sit-ups:

62-93-93-93-100-31-62