it's going to be fine (and even if it isn't, that's also fine)

i've spent multiple evenings convinced my life was falling apart because someone left me on read.

every single time, they were asleep. or busy. or just didn't check their phone. they came over the next day and we watched a series like nothing happened.

and every single time, i told myself i'd stop doing this. that i'd learn. that next time i'd just go to sleep instead of lying there constructing elaborate theories about what i did wrong.

i did not learn. i'm still doing it. i might be doing it right now.

but i think about it a lot. not because it's embarrassing (it is), but because it's so ordinary. we all do this. we treat everything like an emergency, and almost nothing actually is.

think about the last thing that felt urgent. really urgent. the deadline. the notification. the conversation you rehearsed seventeen times in the shower. the email you reread looking for hidden meanings like it was ancient scripture.

now think about whether you'll remember it in a year.

probably not. and that's not sad. that's the point.

we're running around with our nervous systems tuned to "everything is on fire" when most of the time nothing is actually burning.

i used to think being stressed meant i was taking things seriously. like worry was proof of effort. if i wasn't anxious about something, i must not care enough.

turns out that's not how it works. stress isn't a sign of importance. it's just stress. the feeling doesn't know the difference between a real threat and an unread slack message.

and the world is very good at making everything feel urgent.

notifications are designed to feel urgent. deadlines are framed as urgent. news is urgent. sales are urgent. your phone wants you to believe that if you don't look at it right now, you'll miss something critical.

you won't. you'll miss an ad and a meme your friend will send you again tomorrow anyway.

i'm not saying nothing matters. some things do. real things. people you love. your health. the stuff that actually shapes a life.

but the ratio is off. we give 90% of our panic to things that deserve maybe 2%.

here's a test i run sometimes: will this matter in five years?

if yes, okay, maybe it's worth some stress.

if no, and it almost always is no, then i try to remember that i'm a temporary arrangement of atoms on a spinning rock, and the universe has been doing its thing for 14 billion years without once checking my calendar.

that's not nihilism. it's relief.

because if the stakes are lower than they feel, that means you're allowed to relax. you're allowed to mess up. you're allowed to send the email without rereading it nine times. you're allowed to just do the thing instead of optimizing the thing.

half my strategy at this point is just leaving problems for future me. he'll figure it out. he usually does. and when he doesn't, it becomes future-future me's problem. the chain continues. somehow it works.

i used to think i needed to have my life figured out by some arbitrary age. like there was a deadline for becoming a real person with a real plan. and then the deadline passed, and nothing happened. no alarm. no failure notification. just another tuesday.

the goalposts we stress about are mostly ones we made up. or someone else made up and we inherited without questioning.

what if you just... didn't?

what if you treated most problems like they were mild inconveniences instead of existential threats? because that's what most of them are.

the embarrassing thing you said at a party? nobody remembers. they're too busy remembering their own embarrassing thing.

and if someone does remember? that says more about them than you. someone once tried to bring up something embarrassing i did years ago, expecting me to cringe. i genuinely couldn't remember it happening. i'd just... moved on. they hadn't. that's not my problem.

the project that didn't go well? it just didn't go well. that's it. that's the whole thing.

the plan that fell apart? plans do that. that's what plans are for.

i think the funniest part is how much energy we spend on things that fix themselves. half the stuff i've panicked about resolved before i even had to do anything. i was just out there suffering unnessesarily.

so here's what i've landed on:

it's going to be fine.

and even if it isn't, that's also fine.

because "not fine" is survivable. "not fine" is temporary. "not fine" is something you'll either fix, adapt to, or eventually laugh about at a dinner party.

the worst things that have happened to me? i'm mostly over them. some of them are funny now. the best things often started as accidents. and the stuff in between, the stuff i thought was so urgent, i genuinely cannot remember most of it.

which means right now, whatever you're worried about, there's a decent chance future you has already forgotten it.

so maybe give present you a break.

the stakes are almost always lower than they feel. the emergencies are almost never emergencies. and you're probably fine. even if it doesn't feel like it.

it's going to be fine.

and if it's not?

well.

that's also fine.