The most terrifying feeling is often the unknown.
People bump into this in all kinds of tragic places, but often it gets overstated.
For example, your job:
Your employer can fold. You can get laid off. Your firm can be bought out. Heck, you can even get fired.
Everyone is in different circumstances, of course, but if you are looking at any of the above and the worst thing you can think of is having to move back in with your parents, or in-laws, you are going to be just fine.
Watch: Looking at fears in the proper contest can do wonders.
Neuroscience research suggests that when we’re anxious, the unknown is more terrifying than the negative. As Julie Norem describes it, once people have imagined the worst, “they feel more in control. In some sense, they’ve peaked in anxiety before their actual performance. By the time they get to the event itself they’ve taken care of almost everything.”
-Adam Grant, Originals