If I had a chance to tell myself, from the very beginning of my life journey, is one very fact I have trouble processing to this day, which is to - embrace uncertainty

In my life, I've often felt very afraid and severely anxious about the ‘fogginess’ of the things revolving around me. Events like going to a party, meeting people, or going to places beyond my comfort zone, I have trouble processing - Thoughts emerge like ‘what, when, where, how, who, and so forth keep re-occurring in my head. I have the desire to de-fog the things I’m pre-confronted with. Though this does feel very non-stressing and at ease it doesn’t matter if I de-fog or not, though I prefer to do it, it wouldn’t affect my mind that much. Things, however, get serious when it comes to certain events that ignite a fire in my head, and such events are now becoming more frequent. More frequency means more fires in my head, and for a long time (and I still am), have had trouble mitigating these fires. Events like upcoming high-stakes exams, job meetings, job interviews, project tasks, business things, or just down-right adult life scare me. I’ve come to the conclusion that in these events, the fog is infinite. I remember, being afraid of an exam, and like many others, the desire to get at-least a passing grade. Now, normally, one would study, right? I ask myself ‘what is the study?’ Funny the statement is, I’ve often had thoughts such as ‘How does studying work?’, ‘why do we study’, ‘how long do we study’, ‘where do we study’, ‘why does the process of studying even help at all?’ To the point I engineer a framework of studying - optimizing my workflow by implementing scientific-based techniques to optimize my information digestion with neuroscience-based research and methods. Then, to stack that - and this is the critical part of my flaws, I am so afraid of uncertainty in exams - I am willing to write hundreds of questions that will appear in my exams. I am downright afraid of confronting a question I do not know the answer too - seems good right? No. In fact, the thought of it scares me so much, I don’t do it. Or do the bare minimum, and hence recursively create a negative feedback system of anxiety about such events. I haven’t realize, or just forgotten one thing I wish I’ve keep on re-iterating to myself - embracing uncertainty.

I want to tell myself to keep recognizing and accepting the inherent uncertainty in life. This very phenomenon is the harbinger of my severe and chronic procrastination. I do not confront things or do the bare minimum of events with high uncertainty. And if I do, I over-do it. One time, I wrote at least ~30 pages worth of plausible questions and answers to a typical job meeting. I didn’t even use one of them!