I have two things that I would like to add. One is that first we had the concept of "learned helplessness" (from Martin Seligman). After he thought about it for a lot of years, he came up with "learned optimism," which is now the basis of Postive Psychology. We should start a thread about Positive Psychology. It's a good thing.

The other thing I would like to share is a scripture that Tomi's post reminded me of:
"Believe in God; believe that he is, and that he created all things, both in heaven and in earth; believe that he has all wisdom, and all power, both in heaven and in earth; believe that man doth not comprehend all things which the Lord can comprehend." This is one of my favorites, and one that I find very comforting. We don't know the end from the beginning, but if we can trust someone who does, then we don't need to anticipate the worst.

Okay, I'll add a third. Something I learned in a workshop on cognitive approaches for anxiety was that there are two kinds of worry. It can be helpful and productive to worry about things when worrying motivates us to do something about a problem that exists or can be prevented. When we worry about things that could happen, but probably won't and we couldn't do anything about right now, that just makes us miserable and stops us in our tracks. Those are "what if worries." When you anticipate the worst things that could happen, recognize that you have a what if worry, and that it won't help to think about that. Tell yourself that if it happens, then you will deal with it. Then let go of those thoughts.