hope in the what if

Lately, I've been having days where my mind is so consumed with thoughts, mostly about reality, but also the occasional [maybe a little bit more than that-okay fine-not occasional at all] "what if" thoughts. These are the thoughts that are simply just overwhelming.

But this got me thinking, why do "what if" statements have such a negative connotation? Why does the "what if" overwhelm me? And I realised it’s not so much the "what if", but rather the rest of the statement that overwhelms me. And this is what I have needed to change in my life.

"What if this doesn’t work" is overwhelming; there is no hope that what I want to happen, is going to happen. But when I change my perspective to "what if this works" there is hope, there is a positive expectation, there is a possibility that I could win.

This has not just been a recent struggle, but something that has challenged me for a while. Last year I was having a conversation with someone and they challenged me that "what if" is only valid if I have put myself in the situation. If I am not in a situation, "what if" doesn’t apply.

Our conversation was about relationships [since I was single], and that I cannot expect someone to take me on a coffee date, if I am not willing to ask someone to go for coffee.

This thought really inspired me to make a few changes in my approach to certain situations, but unless I actively started making changes in my everyday life, my thinking wasn’t going to change.

So I decided to start entering online competitions. It seems so silly, but I figured, that if I could put myself in a situation that I had no control of the result, that I would be able to learn to be okay with the "what ifs" that may cross my mind.

Now, most of the online giveaways that I have entered, I haven’t won. And ironically, I’m okay with that. Yes, I really really wanted to win the giveaways, but instead of focusing on "what if I don’t win", I would focus on "what if I did". That was all the hope I needed to put myself in the situation.

I only started entering online giveaways about six months ago, and in that time I have won a few giveaways. Knowing that winning is possible is the hope I need to keep putting myself in situations that are "what if" driven. Would I love to win every giveaway? Of course. Will I win every giveaway? Of course not.

This helps me to wrap my head around the idea that not everything I want to happen will be reality, but it also puts into perspective that the things I think will happen [the things I really don’t want to happen] might not happen at all.

Things in life are not certain, but if we live as if everything is a certainty or everything is not certain, we will paralyse ourselves at just the thought of these extremes. Instead, I have chosen to live life focused on what I can control and to not be afraid of a little risk.

What if it doesn’t work, but what if it does? I’m choosing to rather focus on the hope of what may be, and be content with things that are outside of my control. Some may think this is being too optimistic, and living void of realism, however being content in certain uncertainty, is possibly the only way to see that there is hope in the what if.

JCS