Points of failure: Catastrophizing.

I went to Colombia to play shows last month. I’d planned the trip for most of the year; flights for five people, housing, gear, promotion, filming, and thousand other details to mold it all together.

It went flawlessly.

The shows were electric, the mountains mystical, the coffee superb. Everything was a ten out of ten. But before we’d left for Bogotá, I had already lived through an imaginary version of the experience, one that played out less favorably.

I’d catastrophized the trip to death.

I’m no stranger to worrying in advance. I grew up in a household steeped in anxiety. My mother still calls me half-expecting to hear I’ve been kidnapped or that the Chicago fire has reignited.

My partner once helped me trace the root of her worry: when my mom was a young girl, both of her parents died unexpectedly, only months apart. Since then she’s lived with the certainty that disaster is always around the corner.

I guess part of that was handed down to me.

In the weeks leading up to the trip I found myself stressing over customs, sneaky airline fees, show attendance, and anything else I could get my mental hands on. Like mother like son.

My brain was bracing for impact.

Once home and full of new memories, I asked myself how to prepare for the worst but not expect it. I remembered a line from Seneca that had a big impact on me when I first got interested in stoicism a few years ago:

 “We suffer more in imagination than in reality.”

That line shook me. I remember how for a while after reading it I'd started taking tally of things I would stress about, and look up the statistical probabilities for the event occurring. Turns out, none of it was very likely. Stoicism taught me to stack the deck in my favor, then let the cards fall where they may.

Many major philosophies teach us how we never fully control the outcome.

In Colombia, I kept catching myself dancing. One of my bandmates said he hadn’t seen me be that joyful before, or at least had not in a long time. I realized that’s the version of me I want to lead with, not just when things go right, but also before they do.

I write this while in the middle of a long US tour, full of variables outside my control. I'm reminding myself that the goal isn’t certainty; that’s impossible. It’s to dance with the uncertainties. That’s the practice.