- Most situations resolve easily

(Extract from Chapter II)

When considering whether you should work on a difficulty or not, it helps if you understand two basic truths:

1. Many (perhaps most) situations in life will resolve by themselves in time, without us having to do much at all about them.

2. You will be much more efficient if you attend to matters at the right time.

The first point concerns the art of knowing what not to do, or knowing when it is wiser to simply wait and see. How many times have you found yourself worrying for nothing when the solution you needed turned out to be available and ready. How many times have you been upset and anxious only to find out later that there was no cause for concern.

Unnecessary worry is an epidemic in our society and often has a devastating impact on life satisfaction.

Worrying thoughts are often energized by strong emotions, giving them the energy to attract related thoughts and create excessive anxiety. In cognitive psychology, this is referred to as the law of attraction.

Few people are immune to the unpleasant emotions we experience in anticipation of misfortunes, but you need to recognize when worrying is pointless, and avoid it. Calming down your emotions is crucial so you aren’t swayed by impulses.

One way to avoid anxiety is to simply do nothing (not even think about it) and wait for circumstances to settle. On many occasions, this is the best option.

The second axiom above implies that there is a best time to work on objectives. Too many people make their lives unnecessarily difficult by trying to solve problems too soon or at the wrong time; this is typically the case when a person is worried sick and tries to anticipate what they should do as soon as a dilemma strikes. The reality is that a task is usually solved much more easily at the right time; mistimed thinking often causes more disturbance than benefit.

Consider for a moment the following situation: Imagine that you are asked to think about an album that you know well, and to name or identify all the songs on the album in consecutive order. It is likely that you would find this task very difficult, if not impossible. If this task was very important, it would probably trigger high distress and upset because of the high degree of difficulty involved. Now imagine that you realize you can approach the task by listening to the end of each song and identifying the song that comes next; your task has been made a lot easier, because listening to the end of a song evokes memories of the first part of the next song, making it easier to identify the songs in sequence. Your task has not changed, but your timing has; listening to the songs at the right time permitted you to carry out this task more easily and avoid undue anxiety.