The tyranny of the "what if?"
A little question that can control everything.
If you’ve had anxiety for any length of time, you’ve experienced the question that drives the ongoing battle. It’s a question that leads to frantic thoughts and frenetic actions. A question that contains a lot of fear, especially for being only six letters long. That question is, “What if?”
As I sat there on book launch day, I found myself asking it as I refreshed Amazon 1,004,500 times.
What if the book doesn't do well?
What if people don't respond to it?
What if they don't like it?
What if doesn't rank well?
I've struggled with those types of questions for my entire life. And if you have anxiety, you have to:
What if my wife not wanting to have sex means she doesn’t find me attractive and wishes she never married me?
What if my husband not answering his phone means he’s cheating on me?
What if my boss not returning my call right away means he’s upset, disappointed, or wants to fire me?What if my colleague reads that email in a tone other than what I intended?
What if we aren’t able to sell our house for what we’re asking? What if we have to take a loss?
What if that noise I heard under my car was a person and not a bump? What if that table is covered with germs and I get sick?
What if that cough means something is seriously wrong?
What if that noise I hear from my car means a costly repair?
What if I don’t have enough money to do that repair?
What if I’m not able to get all this work done before the end of the day? What if, what if, what if?
I call it the tyranny of the “What if?” For anxious people, it is the ever-present question in the back of our minds. So what do we do? What do I have to do today?
We have to combat it with a different question. A question rooted in trust. That question is, “So what?”
Those two words—“So what?”—are crucial. We anxiety sufferers have an inordinate fear of what might happen. We run through numerous possibilities in our heads until we grab hold of one that seems plausible (even if ridiculous) to us, and then we replay it over and over and over again. But by asking ourselves, “So what?” we strip the “What if?” of its power. The “So what?” forces us to think a little more rationally, a little more logically.
“So what happens if [insert feared outcome] actually comes true? Will it be as bad as I think?” The answer is almost always, “No!”
That’s not to say there aren’t times when the answer to the “What if?” can be hurtful and detrimental. For instance, if you have an inordinate fear of your spouse cheating on you, and it actually does come true, you’ll understandably be devastated. So how should “So what?” comfort you in that scenario? Well, you have to go a step further and turn the question into a statement: “So what?” becomes “So what!” In other words, the hurt, the pain, the hardship that comes can’t be more powerful than the God who has it all under control.
“So what! God has me!” (And that's what can help you deal with the pain and hurt, which are real.)
That admittedly sounds a little trite, but here’s my point: if you truly grasp the truths that God loves you and that He’s really working things for your good, then you can—you have to—rest in that.
Still, the truth is that for every one time the answer to our “What if?” is actually the worst-case scenario we imagined, there are tens of thousands of other times where it is not. I don’t have to tell you that. You already know it.
Generally, then, the “So what?” is never as bad as the “What if?” Remind yourself of that as often as you need to. I'm reminding myself of it today and this week.
By the way, “What if?” and “So what?” contain the same number of letters, with only two of them being different: “so” and “if.” I’ll ask a different question, then: Which two letters are you going to let control you?