... is ageing.
I'm going to turn 29 on the 29th of this month. While the once in a lifetime alignment of numbers is occupying my mind more than the fact that I'll be a year older, there is that feeling somewhere at the back of my head, however faint, that the number 30 is around the corner.
Playing on the fear of ageing is a multi-billion dollar business - look at the wrinkle-lift creams, anti-ageing creams and other such products for proof - which suggests that a lot of people would love to prevent (or cure) ageing.
However, the same people are quite comfortable with themselves and their lives as they age and stop worrying about ageing being a thing.
We dread a lot of things. We try to prevent a lot of things from happening. We worry about several things that could happen. But once they actually do happen, we find them quite trivial looking back on them. And ageing certainly falls in that category.
When you are dreading something, just play out the scenario in your head, visualise how your life would be once the thing you dread has happened - not from the perspective that you have today, that is what causes the fear and anxiety in the first place, but do it from the perspective of the person that you will be after the thing you dread has happened - and more often than not you will see that there is nothing to dread.
And once you visualise your life from that perspective, you will actually see paths that lead up either to that very scenario or alternate scenarios that seem more favourable. This way, you will equip yourself with an action plan rather than anxiety and fear.
And we all make better decisions when we have an action plan rather than when we are feeling anxious and afraid.
I'm going to turn 29 on the 29th of this month. While the once in a lifetime alignment of numbers is occupying my mind more than the fact that I'll be a year older, there is that feeling somewhere at the back of my head, however faint, that the number 30 is around the corner.
Playing on the fear of ageing is a multi-billion dollar business - look at the wrinkle-lift creams, anti-ageing creams and other such products for proof - which suggests that a lot of people would love to prevent (or cure) ageing.
However, the same people are quite comfortable with themselves and their lives as they age and stop worrying about ageing being a thing.
We dread a lot of things. We try to prevent a lot of things from happening. We worry about several things that could happen. But once they actually do happen, we find them quite trivial looking back on them. And ageing certainly falls in that category.
When you are dreading something, just play out the scenario in your head, visualise how your life would be once the thing you dread has happened - not from the perspective that you have today, that is what causes the fear and anxiety in the first place, but do it from the perspective of the person that you will be after the thing you dread has happened - and more often than not you will see that there is nothing to dread.
And once you visualise your life from that perspective, you will actually see paths that lead up either to that very scenario or alternate scenarios that seem more favourable. This way, you will equip yourself with an action plan rather than anxiety and fear.
And we all make better decisions when we have an action plan rather than when we are feeling anxious and afraid.
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