Questioning Worry and the Future

THE BOLDER WAY™

QUESTION ANYTHING

QUESTION RESOURCE 0018

THE QUESTION

What future am I living before it happens?

Worry can bring a future into the present before that future exists.

A possibility can become vivid enough that I begin responding to it now — thinking about it, preparing for it, avoiding it, rehearsing it, or relating to it as though I already know what happens next.

Questioning the future I am imagining does not require me to dismiss the possibility.

It allows me to notice the relationship I have already formed with something that has not happened.

A QUESTION TO HOLD

What part of this future exists now?

BEGIN WHERE SOMETHING GETS YOUR ATTENTION.

You do not have to answer every Question.

THE BOLDER WAY™

QUESTION ANYTHING

QUESTION RESOURCE 0018

BEGIN HERE

WHAT FUTURE AM I IMAGINING?

What do I believe might happen?
What do I believe happens next?
What outcome has become especially present to me?
What makes that outcome feel possible?
What makes it feel probable?
What makes it feel inevitable?

Have I distinguished those from one another?
What do I actually know about what happens next?
What am I filling in?
What have I already decided the future means?
What am I responding to now that has not happened yet?

WHAT IS HERE — AND WHAT IS AHEAD?

What exists in the present?
What exists only as a possibility?
What has already happened?
What has not happened?
What am I carrying from the imagined future into now?

What does the present require of me without knowing the future?
How much of my current experience is being shaped by something that may or may not happen?

WHAT CHANGES WHEN I NOTICE THAT A FUTURE CAN FEEL PRESENT BEFORE IT BECOMES PRESENT?

THE BOLDER WAY™

QUESTION ANYTHING

QUESTION RESOURCE 0018

GO FURTHER

HOW DID THIS FUTURE BECOME SO PRESENT?

When did this possibility begin to feel like the future?
Why this outcome rather than another?
What previous experience am I using to imagine what happens next?
What have I seen happen to other Humans?
What have I been told usually happens?
What pattern do I believe I recognize?

What evidence am I using?
What am I assuming?
What am I predicting?
What am I remembering?
What am I afraid of repeating?
What am I afraid of losing?
What am I trying to prevent by thinking ahead?

LIVING AHEAD

Am I rehearsing what I will feel?
Am I rehearsing what I will say?
Am I rehearsing what I will do?
What am I preparing for?
What am I postponing until I know what happens?

What am I changing now because of what I believe may happen later?
What does this imagined future have the authority to change in my present?
If the future unfolds differently, what have I been relating to while I worried?

QUESTION TO GO FURTHER

When did a possible future become the future in my experience?

THE BOLDER WAY™

QUESTION ANYTHING

QUESTION RESOURCE 0018

LET THE QUESTION MOVE

WHAT ELSE COULD HAPPEN?

What other futures remain possible?
Which possibilities have I barely considered?
Am I treating the absence of certainty as evidence for one particular outcome?
What would I notice if I did not begin with the future I fear?
What future am I hoping for?
Am I relating differently to the future I hope for than to the future I worry about?

What does either imagined future ask me to do now?
What still belongs to the present?
What can be decided now?
What cannot be decided yet?
What would remain a Question even if I imagined a different future?

LOOK AGAIN THROUGH THE THREE LENSES

SELF

What does the future I imagine reveal about how I am relating to myself now?

What am I already asking myself to carry?

What do I believe I will be able — or unable — to handle?

What am I using the imagined future to tell me about who I am?

SYSTEMS

What future is a System leading me to anticipate?

What rule, process, deadline, decision, structure, or pattern is shaping what I believe happens next?

What does the System actually determine?

What am I assuming it determines?

SOCIETY

What futures have I learned to expect?

What outcomes does Society teach me are likely, normal, successful, dangerous, or inevitable?

Which of those expectations have become part of the future I imagine for myself?

RETURN TO THE QUESTION

What future am I living before it happens?
What part of that future exists now?
What remains possible?

What belongs to the present?
What am I still unable to know?
What remains a Question?

What does this reveal about Being Human?

Answers can come from anywhere. Questioning remains yours.

Questioning Worry and the Future — QR-0018