to do is to go back and check how our worries fared against reality.

For example, one week, we might be worried about running out of money; the next of being

sued by a contractor at work; the third about having offended a friend, the fourth of being

brought down by a rumour on social media and the fifth about leaving out something key

from our tax returns.

The worries go on and on, shifting relentlessly from one target to another - ruining our precious

time on earth in the process.

What we seldom ever get around to doing - once the event is past - is pausing to compare

the scale of the worry with what actually happened in the end.

We are too taken up with the next topic of alarm ever to return for a composed audit.

Nevertheless, if we force ourselves to perform one, a strange realisation is likely to dawn

on us: our worries are nearly always completely - and deeply - out of line with reality.

Extended out across a year, a ‘worry audit’ is liable to yield similar conclusions.

We almost lost our minds to worry but we didn’t - in the end - run out of money, the conflictual

work situation found a sound resolution, our friend wasn’t offended and so on.

We might fairly say that only 1% of all the things we ever worry about seem to reach the

levels of awfulness we are solidly convinced - in anticipation - that they possess.

Mark Twain’s famous dictum comes to mind: ‘I have lived through many disasters; only

a few of which actually happened’.

We should - far more than we do - use the reams of data about the unreliability of our

fears as a guide to the future.

If we got it so wrong in the past, we’re highly likely to get it rather wrong now too.

Of course we’re convinced - yet again - that this is really and truly the end, but such

a certainty was with us on a great many other situations which we appear to have sailed

through well enough.

Perhaps the world is not - for all its dangers - as awful as we presume.

Perhaps most of the drama is ultimately unfolding in a place we need to explore and heal as

fast as we can: our minds.