This one comes from something that one of my therapists taught me. I was at a period in my life where I was trying to figure out what I was going to do with my future, but it depended on waiting on some medical testing and other things (basically all my decision-making was on hold until I had more information from others). I love to think of future hypotheticals and try to see things from a number of angles so that I am prepared when the time comes. However, in this particular instance, it was becoming a major negative stressor in my life that I ultimately had no control over.

While we were discussing this, my therapist asked me if I had heard the story about the man crossing the bridge. I said that I had not. I will be paraphrasing a bit, but essentially the story goes like this:

A man is told that to reach the final destination of his long trip he will need to cross a long bridge. He is given no further information on the bridge, and he has multiple days of walking before he gets there. The entire time he is walking he is obsessing over this bridge: what kind of material it will be made of, the safety of the bridge, will he have the strength/endurance/courage to cross it if he deems it to be too dangerous, what he will tell others if he ultimately has to turn around and can’t get to his destination. He fixates on this the entire trip, and by the time he gets to the bridge he has worn himself out so much (mentally and physically) that he collapses with exhaustion and cannot cross the bridge.

Maybe this is a bit of a “childish” story to you, but it does paint a picture of what excessive pre-emptive worrying can do to you. I really took two lessons from this story:

1. The obvious one is that it is okay to plan and prepare yourself ahead of time. Let yourself know that you will have to cross a bridge at some point, and no matter how big/scary/unsafe it may be, you are prepared enough (or not) to handle it (and if not you will deal with it when you get there). When the pre-emptive worry gets to the point of obsession and/or anxiety, you can create unnecessary pressure (and even unwanted physical symptoms) for yourself.
2. The second lesson is hidden under the surface a bit. We can become so focused on the destination that we lose sight of the journey and the current moment that we are in. This is something personally that I have struggled with time and again. “Man, once I get to the other side of that bridge I will be in such a better spot. I just gotta get there. I wonder what that bridge will be like. What if I can’t cross it? What if I can’t reach my dream destination…?” – you get the picture here. A major lesson that I have learned over the last year or so is that even if you are going through a rough patch you can still have enjoyable moments. And the more you anchor yourself in the present (mindfulness helps here) and the more you find enjoyment in the present, the less you focus on getting to that “future destination”. In essence, you know you have a couple days of walking before you get to the bridge; you can either pick your head up, look around, and enjoy what you see until you get there, or you can be stuck in your own head worrying yourself to death over something that you don’t have control over anyways. You’re going to have to cross the bridge eventually, and that in itself will be a source of anxiety when it’s happening. Is it better to enjoy life as much as you can and then deal with the anxiety when you get there, or pile more and more uncertainty on yourself before anything even happens?

Hopefully you find value in this story and these lessons. Despite the obviously bad pun, it really may be best to just enjoy the moment you’re in, worry less about a future you can’t control, and ultimately “cross that bridge when you get there”.