Stop Paying Debts You Don’t Owe

At 28, I was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia.

Over the next two years, uncertainty became the only constant.

Every Tuesday, I went in for blood work that determined my chances of survival. And every Tuesday, before I even had the results, I had already imagined every possible outcome.

Sometimes I’d be in the middle of a completely normal conversation when my mind would jump to a scenario I couldn’t stop thinking about. My doctor telling me the cancer had come back. An infection I couldn’t fight. A medication that wasn’t working. Sometimes it went even further—to my own funeral. Who would be there. What people would say. How my family would cope without me.

The fear felt real, even when none of it had happened.

I’m obviously not a doctor or psychologist, but I wanted to understand why our thoughts could feel so real. So I went looking for answers. Here’s what I found:

Researchers have found that the amygdala—a part of the brain involved in detecting threats—responds not only to actual danger, but also to vividly imagined or anticipated threats. Brain imaging studies have shown that imagining frightening scenarios activates many of the same neural networks involved in experiencing them.

And it doesn't have to be a medical test. It could be waiting for your child to get home safely. Waiting to hear back about a dream job. Finding a lump on your neck you haven’t had checked yet.

What ultimately helped me came from an older man I sat beside during chemotherapy. After hours of sitting next to each other every week, we naturally started talking about life. One day, I told him how debilitating the anxiety around my test results had become.

He looked at me and said:

“Worrying is like paying a debt you don’t owe.”

It was simple. But for some reason, it stayed with me.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized something: 

Most of what I had worried about never happened.

Some of it still hasn't. Yet I had spent hours, days, and weeks giving all my energy and time to it.

These imaginary scenarios kept me focused on a future that didn't exist instead of the moment I was actually in.

Living like this, I realized, was costing me time I’d never get back. Especially when I didn’t know how much time I had.

So now, when I catch myself spiraling, I ask one question:

Is there anything I can do about this right now?

If there is, I do it.

If there isn’t, I remind myself not to suffer through something that hasn’t happened yet.

I still worry. I just try not to spend too much time in a future that doesn’t exist.