Literally The Worst Case Scenario

July 1, 2021

Sitting at my desk, I got a message from a friend that terrified me. 

It said something to the effect of, “I need to update you about something that happened while our team was at your house.”

My friend’s mom ran a nascent cleaning business, and I was using her service. If she’d enlisted her son to deliver the news, I figured it had to be bad.

Naturally, I went to literally my worst-case scenario: 

Someone had read my journal. 😱

Why a stranger would read my journal and how their employer would find out are unimportant. I was certain that’s what had happened. 

Does your mind immediately go to the worst-case scenario?

A friend doesn’t text back as soon as expected. Surely he’s dead, right?

Your boss wants to meet with you. You’re definitely getting fired.

In those moments when the worst-case scenario feels so real and IS FOR SURE HAPPENING, take a pause to recognize that you’re just imagining the worst possible outcome.

My best friend* Sarah Basinger introduced me to a game I like to call “best, worst, most likely.”

While we always jump to the worst case first (they definitely read my journal!), the best case might’ve happened too (there was actually a secret apartment behind my bathroom mirror).

It’s rare that we think about “most likely”, which is definitively the most useful but least entertaining option. (Perhaps they’d broken a dish.)

Next time you go to the worst case right off the bat, consider the best and most likely options too.

Eventually you might learn your friend isn’t dead, your boss isn’t going to fire you, and the person who cleaned your house stole a shot of whiskey from your bar.

*My best friend Natalie always says, ”Best friend is a status, not a person.” So good, right?