August 10, 2026
The following excerpt comes from “How to Let Things Go” by best-selling Buddhist monk Shunmyo Masuno.
Deal with the problems that are in front of you. At the root of anxiety is the desire to know something that you’re never going to know, no matter how much you think about it. A classic example is vague anxiety about the future. The future may be predictable to a certain extent, but we can never really know what will come to pass. Things that are one hundred percent likely to happen do not occur, and things that are one hundred twenty percent unlikely do wind up happening.
No matter how much data you collect, no matter how much time or effort you put into thinking about it, predicting the future is hit or miss. Of course, if you have worries about something that’s likely to happen, best to do what you can about it right now. But there’s no point in worrying about what may or may not come to be. You’re better off devoting your energy to what is right here in front of you. If you focus on what you can take care of now, there’s always the chance that the future you were worried about will change. It’s useless to fret about the future when you can’t know what will happen. All we can do is try our best to deal with problems when they actually occur.
©Shunmyo Masuno
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