I said it almost helplessly, one day, when a close relative’s diagnosis had just come to light. “It feels impossible not to think about it,” I said. “Every time I close my eyes, my mind runs ahead. What if this happens? What if that happens? Where will this end?”
He listened quietly, without interrupting and without rushing to correct me. Then he asked softly, “Tell me — what exactly are you thinking about?”
I paused.
“The future,” I said. “What will happen next. How bad it could get.”
He nodded and said, “And is that future in your hands?”
That question stayed with me longer than I expected.
He didn’t say that thinking about the future was wrong. He said something subtler: there is a difference between thinking responsibly and thinking helplessly. “When a painful situation appears,” he said, “our mind immediately starts producing scenes. Worst-case scenes. Not because they are real, but because they are emotionally loud. And loud thoughts are often mistaken for important thoughts.”
He explained to me that much of our distress comes not from what is happening, but from what we start imagining might happen. These imagined outcomes belong to a space we might call the circle of concern — things that matter emotionally but lie outside our control.
“The problem,” he said, “is not that you care. The problem is that you are investing your mental energy where it cannot produce anything useful.”
I realized how much time I was spending inside that circle — replaying scenarios, rehearsing losses that had not yet occurred, grieving futures that were still only thoughts.
Then he shifted the conversation. “Instead of asking, ‘What might happen?’ ask, ‘What can I do?’”
That felt like a small change in words, but it carried a massive change in posture.
He gave an example that immediately resonated with me.
“Suppose you talk to someone who has already gone through a similar illness in their family,” he said. “You can ask two kinds of questions. You can ask, ‘How much suffering was there?’ or you can ask, ‘What helped? Who guided you? What should I be careful about?’ One type of conversation increases helplessness. The other increases agency.”
I recognized myself in that. I had been collecting stories of pain, not maps of navigation.
He wasn’t saying that pain should be denied or silenced. He said that pain should not become the sole content of our thinking. “There is a difference between acknowledging suffering and dwelling inside it,” he said.
And then he said something that restructured my entire way of relating to fear.
“There are two domains,” he said. “One is yours. One belongs to God. The confusion begins when you start working in God’s domain and abandon your own.”
I knew what he meant.
The outcome, the length of life, the final results — those were not mine to manage. But finding a good doctor, seeking reliable advice, arranging care, being emotionally present — those were mine.
Yet ironically, I was doing the opposite: obsessing over what I could not control, and neglecting what I could.
“Every time your thoughts go into what is not yours,” he said, “your energy is being drained from what is yours.”
That explained why I was so exhausted — even though I hadn’t done anything useful.
He reminded me that emotional stability does not come from eliminating concern, but from placing concern at the appropriate place. “It is natural,” he said, “to feel fear when something serious happens. That fear is not abnormal. What becomes unhealthy is when fear becomes obsession, and concern becomes paralysis.”
He gave a simple childhood example.
“When we were children and knew a vaccination was coming,” he said, “we felt anxious all morning. But the injection would still be administered. The only choice we had was whether to spend hours suffering mentally before it, or endure it once and be done with it.”
That was such a simple example, yet so accurate.
I realized how often I chose to suffer many times mentally before suffering even once in reality.
Then he said something I had never thought about before.
“Trying to eliminate uncertainty is what opens the door to superstition.”
I looked at him, puzzled.
“When you cannot tolerate uncertainty,” he explained, “you start looking for false certainties — magical thinking, exaggerated predictions, irrational patterns. But this world is built on uncertainty. Even the most righteous person does not escape it.”
This was strangely liberating. I had been trying to become mentally secure by predicting everything. He was telling me that mental security comes from accepting that not everything can be predicted — and still acting responsibly within that uncertainty.
“Your job,” he said, “is not to make life predictable. Your job is to remain functional and principled in uncertainty.”
That changed something in me.
He didn’t ask me to stop thinking. He taught me what to think. He didn’t ask me to stop feeling. He taught me how to place feelings within action. He advised me to become vigilant about the content of my conversations as well.
“Not every conversation is innocent,” he said. “Some conversations keep you inside helplessness. Some pull you back into agency.” He suggested being selective: whom to ask, what to ask, and why to ask. Not every story deserves your attention. Not every experience deserves your emotional investment.
Because attention itself is a resource.
I began noticing how often my emotional state shifted simply by what I chose to talk about, listen to, or dwell on. And slowly, something remarkable happened. The situation had not changed. The uncertainty was still there. But I was calmer. Not because I knew what would happen — but because I knew what was mine to do. I learned that peace does not come from controlling outcomes, but from honoring responsibilities. And that emotional stability is not the absence of fear, but the presence of direction.
He ended that conversation with a sentence I still repeat to myself when my mind starts wandering into dark corridors: “Whenever you feel overwhelmed, ask yourself: Am I standing in my domain… or trying to live in God’s?”
Every time I return to my domain — to action, to care, to effort, to prayer — my heart becomes lighter. Not because the burden is gone, but because it is now carried correctly.
