I Didn't Know I Was Catastrophizing Until My 50's

Every Sunday I checked the 7-day forecast. If rain was coming on Wednesday, I spent the next three days suffering over it. I could literally feel the rain running down the back of my shirt. The water in my shoes. The wet seat. Nine and a half times out of 10, it never rained. I'd been doing this my entire life — not just with weather, but with everything. Lying in bed at night, ruminating over things I couldn't change, catastrophizing over things that hadn't happened yet and might never happen. It cost me real time with my kids. It cost me my mental health. Then I read a single sentence by Seneca, the Stoic philosopher: "He suffers more than is necessary who suffers before it is necessary." It was like a bomb went off. That one sentence let me finally see the pattern for what it was — a dichotomy of control - and start doing something about it. 🔔 Subscribe for honest conversations about reinvention after 50.