Awfulizing.
I heard this term the other day while listening to the podcast Happier. Gretchen Rubin's sister, screenwriter Elizabeth Craft, was relating how her natural tendency toward worry resulted in awfulizing.
She explained how she would allow something to spin out of control as she automatically jumped to the worse case scenario. I too am guilty of this.
I don't know if it's a combination of an overly active imagination plus an analytical mind that leads me toward the worst possible outcome as a real possibility? My solution to awfulizing is being overly planned. I try to think of everything before hand so I'm never left unprepared. I'm so good at this I should have been a Boy Scout. The anxiety this produces is never pleasant.
To be honest, rarely has the worst case scenario ever come true. Most of the time things have worked out one way or another. Awfulizing is a hard way to live your life, and I don't recommend it. Perhaps I should listen to my own advice.
Me too, me too. It reminds me of a Mark Twain quote. He said something like, I've lived through a lot of hard stuff and most of them didn't happen.
ReplyDeleteI wonder why this seems to be a go to?
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