It's hard to answer the question without more details about your life. Married? Age? Hobbies? Job? Also, what have you tried in the past that didn't work?
Ask HN: How can I stop worrying and start living?
41–50 of 83 posts
Re: Ask HN: How can I stop worrying and start living?
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’ve tried this before, but I always fear I vastly overestimated my ability to handle the worst case.
> I always fear I vastly overestimated my ability to handle the worst case. Good! Now you can live through rough times and prove your own fortitude and resilience to yourself and the doubters.
“I don’t fail, I learn.”
Re: Ask HN: How can I stop worrying and start living?
#43While there may be some good life wisdom dispensed in this thread, honestly I think it will all amount to armchair psychology. I think some individual therapy may go much further here. Have you been to one to specifically talk about this? If not, start there.
This could be a mindset thing, or it also could be a specific to a diagnosis that may be helpful to have to better understand yourself. A qualified therapist will be able to help you figure that out.
Re: Ask HN: How can I stop worrying and start living?
#44This is a silly little mindgame but it really does help with worry and stress. You basically flip all worst-case scenarios on their head to see the advantages of whatever situation you're in. Good Game: Good! Now I can .... Eg. My husband is divorcing me. Good! Now I can find someone who loves me deeply and doesn't leave ice cream containers composting on his desk. My upstairs neighbors are hella loud and annoying. G…
Reminds me of the Jocko video
Re: Ask HN: How can I stop worrying and start living?
#45Check out Victor Frankel's "Man's search for meaning". His story is inspiring and he invented logotherapy which has had a prominent roll in depression therapy for decades now. It gets at the heart of the question "why live?"
Re: Ask HN: How can I stop worrying and start living?
#46Re: Ask HN: How can I stop worrying and start living?
#47This is a silly little mindgame but it really does help with worry and stress. You basically flip all worst-case scenarios on their head to see the advantages of whatever situation you're in. Good Game: Good! Now I can .... Eg. My husband is divorcing me. Good! Now I can find someone who loves me deeply and doesn't leave ice cream containers composting on his desk. My upstairs neighbors are hella loud and annoying. G…
I had a realization the other day that nobody on the planet asked to be here. We all just appear one day and are forced to do what we can with what we have. No instruction manual, no control over our inherited reality, physical, mental or material. It stuck with me for several days and it has led to a surprising amount of psychic relief. I am finding myself more forgiving of myself and others.
Re: Ask HN: How can I stop worrying and start living?
#48This is a silly little mindgame but it really does help with worry and stress. You basically flip all worst-case scenarios on their head to see the advantages of whatever situation you're in. Good Game: Good! Now I can .... Eg. My husband is divorcing me. Good! Now I can find someone who loves me deeply and doesn't leave ice cream containers composting on his desk. My upstairs neighbors are hella loud and annoying. G…
Can't reach the grapes? Good! They were sour.
Huh... I wasn't sure the origins of that idiom and just googled it and that's exactly what it's from!
> . The idiom sour grapes is taken from an Aesop Fable called The Fox and the Grapes. In the story, a bunch of grapes hangs from a vine, just out of the fox’ s reach. The fox tries all manner of maneuvers in order to obtain the grapes, but he fails. The fox walks away muttering, “I am sure they are sour.” The moral of the fable is: “It is easy to despise what you can not get.”
Clever fox. I'm sure he found some nice chicken eggs to steal instead of those grapes anyway.
Re: Ask HN: How can I stop worrying and start living?
#49There is a book by the same name
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4866.How_to_Stop_Worryin...
I read it many years ago. You essentially just have to take each day one at a time. Live in the now.
Re: Ask HN: How can I stop worrying and start living?
#50therapy is the thing that will help you.
Also medication can help. Taking anxiety medication felt like turning off a switch that controlled an alarm siren in my brain. Some people are opposed to medication, and to them I say: grow up. Talk to a doctor.