Everything Is Going To Be Okay
Alright, that might be a bit of an exaggeration, but still. All of us know that feeling of dread that keeps us awake at night, when we know something bad is going to happen and we feel like we can’t do anything to make things better. That’s it, after it happens, everything is going to be painful, and how on earth are we going to deal with it?
This fear can sometimes stop us from doing things we need to do. Sometimes the dread we feel is not even rational, but let’s be honest, all of us are guilty of creating catastrophic scenarios in our heads from time to time. Well, let me tell you a funny little something that might just put things into perspective.
Us humans like to think that we are oh-so flawlessly programmed, but that just ain’t true. We are actually pretty bad at what’s called “affective forecasting”, meaning we are not able to predict our hypothetical/future emotions very accurately. Psychological research shows, that we tend to overestimate:
- The impact of the emotion (how strong it is going to be)
- The duration of the emotion (how long we are going to feel it)
For example, we think winning a lottery would make us absolutely ecstatic for the eternity and beyond, but that’s just not true. Why is it that we make these incorrect assumptions then? Well, there are a few reasons:
- We tend to only focus on the positive aspects of positive situations and negative aspects of negative situations when predicting how we’re going to feel. We tend to forget that no situation is a completely isolated bubble, if you will. You might think breaking up with your significant other is going to be the worst thing in the world, but what if in the same week you’ll also get offered that internship you really wanted? What if your cat has kittens or your sister has a baby? All of these things are going to affect your mood as well, and it’s not going to be all as bad as it might seem.
- We construct these predictions based on semantic information we have. This means that despite any previous experience you may have, if you believe something is meant to be painful, you expect it to be painful.
- Our predictions are affected by our current mood. We always project our current self in our current state into the future, but as we all know, mood is a pesky thing that can sometimes change from minute to minute. Cue you and your friends making grand plans for Friday night and being all excited, except come Friday night you’d much rather stay in with some snacks and Netflix.
It is definitely easier to predict things in the nearer future, but still. Remember that you don’t even know what kind of a person you’re going to be in a couple of months! You may pick up a new hobby, fall in love, or move to a different place. Next time when you’re dreading something just remember that it’s just your brain being a big ol’ drama queen, and this too shall pass. Probably sooner than you’re expecting.