Expect the worst, hope for the best?

Something a lot of us do as a "positive" strategy

— but is it actually protecting us?

The thing is, if the worst happens,

it'll be the second time we go through it —

in our mind.

Mental simulation of negative events

activates many of the same neural pathways as the real thing.

Ethan Kross's research suggests that

"living it once in your mind"

is not just a metaphor

— it's fairly literal, neurologically.

And if the best happens?

It arrives not as joy, but as relief.

The crash didn't happen.

Which isn't quite the same thing.

Research by Shepperd et al. shows that

bracing for the worst

systematically blunts positive emotional responses

even when outcomes are good.

We protect ourselves from the low.

And accidentally cap the high.

What's the better strategy,

you ask?

A mental shift.

A reframing toward letting go.

Shakespeare wrote, "There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so."

Events in themselves are neutral.

We assign meaning to them.

That's essentially what cognitive behavioural therapy calls cognitive reappraisal

— the idea that our interpretation of events,

not the events themselves,

shapes our emotional response.

Most of the time, the worst doesn't materialise.

So perhaps we can try to let go of expectations,

let things unfold as they will,

and stay curious about what happens next.

Easier said than done?

Perhaps.

But why fill our minds with things

that are mostly out of our control?

Out of our hands,

out of our minds.

That's the practice.