“Oh no, what if X happens, what’ll I do? I might lose Y!”
I find that asking and answering a couple different question helps.
“What’ll I do if I lose Y?” Not gnashing your teeth over losing Y, but actually answering the question. “If I lose Y I will …” ″What’s my best strategy here?”
One claim in some depression book—catastrophizing is at bottom a worry that you won’t be able to handle the loss. It’s a boogeyman in the closet, and you’re too scared to open the closet and check, so live in fear, night after night, that the boogeyman will jump out and get you.
Open the closet and look. The boogeyman is there or he is not. Do you think he won’t come out and kill you just because you refused to look to see if he was there? Buck up and look. What you’ll likely find is that the boogeyman really isn’t so fearsome, and your fear of the boogeyman is more crippling than anything he might do to you.
Either you’ll spend from here to eternity with this fantastic girl, or you won’t. Likely not. Someday you’ll lose her. You’ll weep and moan and move on to some other girl in a few weeks. Or maybe you’ll dump her. You’ll look back on your time together fondly, perhaps guiltily, when you’re with someone else. Or perhaps 5 years from now you’ll be struggling to remember her name.
Now, you look at your options in a game theoretic sense.
She’s on the verge of dumping you, or not. You can fret about, or blithely go on as if nothing is wrong. Fretting makes either situation worse. Dominated strategy. Do not do.
You can handle it if she dumps you. Trying to read the tea leaves for the impending dump only makes you look and feel insecure. Do not. She’ll eventually let you know if she wants to dump you. Until then, you’re seeing a fantastic girl. Make hay while the sun is shining.
I’m a worrier. I’m trying to get over it. Part of it seems like fear is a response to uncertainty. Remove the uncertainty. Face the issue, pick a strategy, and move on.
Either you’ll spend from here to eternity with this fantastic girl, or you won’t.
Fallacy of grey. The “you won’t” possibility includes them breaking up tomorrow, them breaking up next year, or either of them dying in thirty years, among others.
“Oh no, what if X happens, what’ll I do? I might lose Y!”
I find that asking and answering a couple different question helps.
“What’ll I do if I lose Y?” Not gnashing your teeth over losing Y, but actually answering the question. “If I lose Y I will …”
″What’s my best strategy here?”
One claim in some depression book—catastrophizing is at bottom a worry that you won’t be able to handle the loss. It’s a boogeyman in the closet, and you’re too scared to open the closet and check, so live in fear, night after night, that the boogeyman will jump out and get you.
Open the closet and look. The boogeyman is there or he is not. Do you think he won’t come out and kill you just because you refused to look to see if he was there? Buck up and look. What you’ll likely find is that the boogeyman really isn’t so fearsome, and your fear of the boogeyman is more crippling than anything he might do to you.
Either you’ll spend from here to eternity with this fantastic girl, or you won’t. Likely not. Someday you’ll lose her. You’ll weep and moan and move on to some other girl in a few weeks. Or maybe you’ll dump her. You’ll look back on your time together fondly, perhaps guiltily, when you’re with someone else. Or perhaps 5 years from now you’ll be struggling to remember her name.
Closet opened. Boogeyman faced. Situation handled.
Now, you look at your options in a game theoretic sense.
She’s on the verge of dumping you, or not. You can fret about, or blithely go on as if nothing is wrong. Fretting makes either situation worse. Dominated strategy. Do not do.
You can handle it if she dumps you. Trying to read the tea leaves for the impending dump only makes you look and feel insecure. Do not. She’ll eventually let you know if she wants to dump you. Until then, you’re seeing a fantastic girl. Make hay while the sun is shining.
I’m a worrier. I’m trying to get over it. Part of it seems like fear is a response to uncertainty. Remove the uncertainty. Face the issue, pick a strategy, and move on.
Fallacy of grey. The “you won’t” possibility includes them breaking up tomorrow, them breaking up next year, or either of them dying in thirty years, among others.
Let Day N be the breakup day.
I don’t see the analysis changing. For all N, not fretting over it is the dominating strategy, and he’ll move on and get over it.
You’re forgetting that his actions can themselves affect the value of N. (On the other hand, I agree with your conclusions.)
I didn’t phrase it in the best way, but I wasn’t forgetting that behavior can affect the value of N. That was one of the points.