There are many things in this life not as they should be. And wisdom teaches us to prepare for things to not go our way. We don’t want to be caught off guard and left undone when we could’ve had contingency plans in place beforehand. But sometimes we get too far ahead of ourselves and engage in premature warfare – fighting battles in our mind that aren’t here yet, and may never come.
On the one hand, there’s no point in putting our head in the sand and denying reality. We do well to prepare ourselves accordingly when the writing is clearly on the wall. But often anxiety is simply getting the best of us and we’re playing out an endless stream of worst-case scenarios. We then live as if these scenarios are our reality and spend our energy fighting hypothetical battles.
Of course, our hypothetical might come true. And there’s wisdom in living with the sober reality of this possibility. But it’s not a battle we need to currently fight when it’s just a possibility. It can inform our decisions today, but we don’t have to worry endlessly about unknowns that might never take place.
For instance, being fired from a job is a very real possibility in the rapidly shifting landscape of the workforce. It’s foolish to deny this possibility. But it shouldn’t be something we worry about everyday. Instead we focus on the choices we can make – becoming more resilient by cultivating our skills, building our network, and discovering a deeper calling that’s not dependent on any one particular job.
In this way we’re preparing for future unknowns without draining our strength by fighting shadows.
In the end, fight the battles that are yours to fight. But don’t wear yourself out by fighting prematurely. There’s no need to fight our battles more than what is necessary.
