Make believe arguments often bounce around my head. You know the situation: you’re driving, someone cuts you up, and you mentally berate them for the next 6 months. Or someone at work upsets you in a meeting, and you picture a showdown in full view of the office. (In your daydream, the rest of your colleagues cheer you on. You are never the bad guy.)
Then, in my case, something ridiculous happens: I start to judge that person because of our imagined fallout. I start to think “That guy’s all bile and vinegar”. Of course he is — I made him that way. It’s nonsense.
These imagined fallouts are more pernicious than they first seem. They get their tendrils everywhere. They can even affect how we act.
In Start Now. Get Perfect Later. Rob Moore expands upon this. Any time we put the future off, it’s because we’re imagining some kind of fallout. We hold back because we’re convinced something terrible will happen. In one sense this is obvious. But, by making the connection between judging people on an imagined argument, it shows it for what it is: nonsense.
So how to prevent this? For me, the first step is catching myself in the act. Already — in just two days — I’ve found any number of examples. At least five times I’ve been reluctant to ask a question because I think I know how someone will react. Of course, I have no idea.
Have that conversation. Do that thing. Chances are, there won’t be a fallout. Life is not a Doctor Pepper advert. That terrible event won’t materialise. And, hey — if it does, at least it’s real.