Chicken Little Syndrome

When I was a kid, I went through a period of time where "Chicken Little" was my favorite story. I remember sitting in my grandmother's basement, switching back and forth between that and the children's version of the story of David and Goliath. Even though there were dazzling bright red letters on light blue background that nearly induced nystagmus on the David and Goliath book, I eventually favored Chicken Little, mostly because it was so silly! I mean, this tiny bird ran around all the time screaming about the sky falling when it wasn't! What a goofball!

Well.

Some twenty-odd years later, in the wake of what could have been a horribly catastrophic work situation, I find myself shaking my head, confused and puzzled by the innocuous, low-key outcome that actually took place and feeling a lot like Chicken Little.

All I know is that, time and again throughout my adult life, I've been in positions where I've found myself worried and fearful of what may come next. Worried that I don't have the skills or internal resources to deal with it. Worried that something bad is going to happen because I opened my mouth and tried on being assertive, rather than being passive or aggressive, or passive-aggressive. Worried that this time, this time it's really going to turn out just as badly as the worst case scenario I'm playing in my head says it will. Time and again, I have found that the worst case scenario virtually never happens.

How did I come to expect the worst out of things? I don't suppose the answer to that is really important. What is important to me, though, is all of the time I've wasted on worrying about the things that I cannot control. No matter what happens, no matter what I think I want to have in my life, there will always be factors that are outside of my control. It isn't like my worrying makes it easier or changes how other people think or respond. To think so is just believing in irrelevant hocus-pocus.

Basically, I can control how I choose to think about my life and what I choose to do about it. As far as I can tell, that's about it. When I think of it that way, there is so much I can control, but at the same time, so little.

Whenever I hear Chicken Little screaming and scrambling about inside of my head, perhaps I can find a way not to get caught up in it, not to follow him around and start screaming myself, but stop for a minute, look up at the sky, and see if it's truly falling. Chances are, it will still be up there.