"Our efforts to influence the future aren’t the problem. The problem—the source of all the anxiety—**is the need that we feel, from our vantage point here in the present moment, to be able to know that those efforts will prove successful**. It’s fine, of course, to strongly prefer that your partner never leave you, and to treat him or her in ways that make that happy outcome more likely. **But it’s a recipe for a life of unending stress to insist that you must be able to feel certain, now, that this is how your relationship is definitely going to unfold in the future**. "**So a surprisingly effective antidote to anxiety can be to simply realize that this demand for reassurance from the future is one that will definitely never be satisfied**—no matter how much you plan or fret, or how much extra time you leave to get to the airport. You can’t know that things will turn out all right. **The struggle for certainty is an intrinsically hopeless one—which means you have permission to stop engaging in it.**" --- **Tags** -- [[quotes]], [[control]], [[anxiety]], [[character]], [[acceptance]], [[self-control]], [[relationships]], [[fooled-by-randomness]] **Source** -- [[202410130434 - B - Four Thousand Weeks]]