One reason I'm really grateful to own an xbox and to have xbox live is that I get to play games with my favorite friend who has recently moved far away. He is "training" me how to kick butt at Halo:Reach. I miss being able to physically hang out and see his cute lil face and hug him whenever I want, but being able to play games together even though we live so far apart for now makes the distance much more bearable. A disadvantage of technology, for me at least, is that always expecting to be connected can be scary. This friend I speak of sent me a text message saying he'd be right back to play games after getting some milk from the store. I didn't hear from him for almost two hours after that and kept imagining all sorts of horrible scenarios that could have taken place. Fortunately, he'd just left his phone plugged in and forgot that he left it on silent, got distracted helping his sister with some household things and before he knew it, it was an hour later. I remembered a time a few years ago when my dad took longer getting home from taking my sister to the airport and my cousin to his apartment in Provo than was expected. My mom and I were unable to get a hold of any of those individuals, and my mom started to imagine similar horrible scenarios that could have taken place. But it turned out they were all just fine, they just had different reasons for not being able to answer their phones than the reasons my mom and I had started to imagine. Perhaps something I need to work on is letting go of worry and realizing that it will not help me or the people who could be in potential danger. Especially from such a great distance. It's much better to act calmly and rationally to save myself from needless stress. I think worry can still be a good thing though. It helps remind us how much we care about the people close to us.
3 comments:
There's a fine line between sensitive impressions of genuine concern, and wildly unlikely scenarios of doom. I like to think of it in terms of the economics, the likelihood of something. Applying the law of parsimony (or Occam's razor) means that the most statistically likely explanation (the one with the simplest cause/effect) is probably the best explanation. People are late because they had a flat, or they remembered to get something from the store. People don't answer the phone because they turned the ringer off, or the battery is dead.
Tragedies do occur, and they are heartbreaking. But you will pretty much never predict one.
Obviously I relate, but I worry less than I used to. It's most difficult when things don't happen as expected and my imagination runs wild. I get mad at my imagination from time to time.
Worse-case-scenario Syndrome is strong among us...and I agree with your mom, it has a lot to do with how CREATIVE we are, the endless possibilities we can imagine! Which could lead to great pay-all-your-bills novel contracts or ulcers. You have some Halo fans out here that could inspire a cousin-reunion if we could get the timing right!
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