Don't Let Tomorrow Steal Today

11/2/26

Don't Let Tomorrow Steal Today

"Worrying does not empty tomorrow of its troubles, it empties today of its strength."

- Commonly attributed to Corrie ten Boom

Have you ever spent an entire evening worrying about something that hadn't happened yet? Maybe it was a difficult conversation, a financial concern, an uncertain relationship, or an important decision. Your mind kept running through possibilities, imagining what could go wrong and how you might respond. Hours passed, and despite all that thinking, you were no closer to knowing how things would turn out.

Yet somehow, you felt exhausted.

There's something frustrating about realizing how much of our time and energy can be consumed by problems that exist, at least for now, only in our imagination. We know that worrying won't change the future, but knowing that doesn't always stop us. Part of the difficulty is that worry can feel so much like preparation that we rarely notice when one has become the other.

When Worry Disguises Itself as Preparation

Worry often feels productive. We tell ourselves that if we think through every possible outcome, anticipate every obstacle, and prepare for the worst, we'll somehow be better equipped to handle whatever comes our way.

There's some truth in the importance of preparation. Thinking ahead helps us make better decisions, recognize risks, and take responsibility for our lives. The trouble begins when we continue thinking long after we've exhausted anything useful that we can do.

Consider the difference between reviewing your finances and repeatedly imagining financial disaster. One helps you understand your situation, evaluate your options, and make decisions. The other can leave you anxious about circumstances that may never materialize. And because the future remains uncertain, there's always another possibility to consider, another scenario to replay, another reason to keep thinking.

Over time, this kind of mental rehearsal can become a habit. We mistake the amount of time that we spend worrying for the amount of preparation that we accomplish.

A useful question to ask yourself is: Am I thinking about this because there's something that I can do, or because I'm uncomfortable not knowing what will happen?

Sometimes, what keeps us worrying isn't the problem itself. It's our desire for certainty in a world that can't provide it.

The Surprising Cost of Worrying About Tomorrow

In a fascinating 2020 study published in Behavior Therapy, researchers at Penn State asked 29 participants with generalized anxiety disorder to record specific worries over a 10-day period and track whether their predictions came true over the following month. The researchers found that 91.4% of the recorded worry predictions did not materialize during the observation period. The participants had generally estimated that their feared outcomes were much more likely than they actually proved to be.

The study was small, involved people with a particular anxiety disorder, and focused on predictions that could be checked within a relatively short period. It doesn't mean that 91.4% of everyone's worries are unfounded. Still, the findings reveal something worth considering: our minds can give frightening possibilities a sense of likelihood they haven't earned. We may spend days anticipating a conversation that turns out to be uneventful or imagining consequences that never occur. Meanwhile, the time and emotional energy spent worrying are very real, regardless of whether the feared event ever happens.

A separate study involving 240 adults found that people who woke up anticipating a stressful day tended to perform worse on working-memory tasks later that day, even after researchers accounted for the stressful events they actually experienced. The study was observational, so it doesn't establish that anticipating stress directly caused the poorer performance. But the association is revealing. Imagine spending your morning worrying about an afternoon meeting, only to arrive distracted and mentally tired before the conversation has even begun. The meeting might be perfectly manageable, yet the anticipation has already occupied attention that you could have used elsewhere.

Taken together, these findings offer a compelling reason to examine our habitual worries. We cannot assume that every feared outcome will disappear, but we can recognize that endlessly anticipating difficulty has a cost of its own.

Courage Is Choosing What Matters Despite Uncertainty

Perhaps one of the most remarkable examples of acting with purpose amid uncertainty comes from the life of Corrie ten Boom herself.

During World War II, Corrie and her family lived in Haarlem, the Netherlands, where they helped shelter Jewish people and others being persecuted by the Nazis. Their home became part of a resistance network, with a secret hiding place constructed behind a false wall in Corrie's bedroom. The family helped obtain ration cards and arranged shelter for people whose lives were in danger. On February 28, 1944, Nazi authorities raided the house, arresting Corrie, her father, her sister Betsie, and many others. Six people managed to hide behind the concealed wall and remained undiscovered. According to the Corrie ten Boom House Museum, they were rescued by members of the resistance approximately 47 hours later, while the house was still under guard. Corrie's father died shortly after his arrest, and Betsie later died at Ravensbrück concentration camp. Corrie survived and eventually shared her family's story with the world.

Corrie's circumstances were extraordinary, and her suffering should never be reduced to a simple lesson about overcoming worry. We cannot know the full extent of her private fears. What we do know is that she and her family continued making deliberate, practical choices in the face of genuine danger, guided by values they believed were worth protecting. They could not control what the Nazi authorities would do, but they could decide how to respond to the people who needed their help. The distinction matters in our own, far less extreme circumstances. We may have legitimate concerns about the future, and some may eventually come true. But we can still make thoughtful decisions, honor our commitments, and pursue what matters without first resolving every uncertainty. We don't need a guarantee that things will work out before we can make good use of the day in front of us.

You Don't Have to Fight Every Worried Thought

Of course, understanding that worry can be unproductive doesn't automatically make it disappear. In fact, trying to force ourselves to stop worrying can sometimes become another source of frustration.

An interesting study published in Science in 2011 offers a surprisingly simple alternative. Researchers at the University of Chicago examined whether writing about anxiety immediately before an important exam could improve student performance. In experiments involving high school students, those who were especially anxious about tests benefited from spending just 10 minutes writing about their thoughts and feelings before the exam. In one comparison, highly anxious students who completed the writing exercise earned an average grade of B+, while similarly anxious students who did not write averaged a B−.

The researchers suggested that expressing anxious thoughts may free up some of the working-memory capacity that worry otherwise occupies. The findings were specific to test-related anxiety, so we shouldn't assume that writing will resolve every kind of worry. But they point toward a useful approach: rather than constantly struggling against uncomfortable thoughts, we can acknowledge them, give them some space, and then return our attention to what needs to be done.

You might acknowledge that you are nervous about an upcoming presentation without spending the entire week imagining failure. You can recognize that your career feels uncertain while continuing to develop your skills and explore opportunities. Or you might admit that a difficult conversation frightens you, prepare what you want to say, and accept that the other person's response is beyond your control.

Being concerned about something doesn't require you to give it your attention every waking moment. Sometimes the healthiest response is to recognize the concern, decide whether anything needs to be done, and allow yourself to get on with the rest of your life.

How to Apply This in Your Life

As you begin this week, consider a few simple ways to protect your energy and redirect it toward what matters.

1. Separate what you can influence from what you cannot. When something is weighing on your mind, write down the specific concern and identify which parts you can realistically influence. You may not be able to control an outcome, but you can often influence how well you prepare, what information you gather, or how you respond.

2. Turn one recurring worry into a concrete action. If you're worried about money, review your budget or make a financial plan. If you're concerned about your career, learn a new skill or reach out to someone who can help. Even a modest action can give your thinking a useful direction and reduce the temptation to keep revisiting the same concern.

3. Give your thoughts a place to land. When your mind feels overwhelmed, spend 10 minutes writing freely about what's troubling you. You don't need to solve everything on the page. The exercise may help you recognize which concerns deserve attention and which are simply repeating themselves.

4. Question your worst-case assumptions. The next time you find yourself imagining an unfavorable outcome, consider what evidence actually supports that prediction. What other outcomes are possible? If something difficult does happen, what options or resources might be available to you? The purpose is to develop a more balanced view of what's possible, including your ability to respond.

5. Make room for the life that you're right living now. Set aside some time when you deliberately return your attention to something meaningful in the present. Spend time with someone you love, exercise, work on a personal goal, or enjoy an ordinary experience without mentally rehearsing the next challenge. You don't have to resolve every uncertainty before allowing yourself these moments.

None of these practices requires you to ignore the challenges ahead. They simply encourage you to approach those challenges with greater perspective, using your attention where it can make a difference.

And when your mind inevitably returns to an unresolved concern, there's no need to criticize yourself. Notice where your thoughts have gone, consider whether anything requires action, and gently redirect your attention when it doesn't.

Give This Week the Strength It Deserves

There will always be something ahead of you that you cannot fully predict. An unanswered question, a crisis, a decision waiting to be made, or a challenge that hasn't yet revealed itself. That's part of living a life in which the things that we care about don't always come with guarantees.

And perhaps that's why this quote is worth returning to. It doesn't suggest that tomorrow will be easy or that we should stop caring about what happens next. It reminds us that the attention and energy that we have today are limited, and how we use them matters.

Some of tomorrow's problems will need to be faced. Others will quietly disappear without ever becoming the difficulties that we imagined. Most of the time, we won't know which is which in advance.

So, as you move into this week, prepare where preparation is useful. Address the things that deserve your attention and allow yourself to put them down when you've done what you reasonably can.

Then return to the people, experiences, and goals that make your life meaningful. Have the conversation that you've been putting off. Enjoy a peaceful evening without feeling obligated to solve another problem. Give your attention to something that you care about, even while some questions or concerns remain unanswered.

The future will arrive in its own time. When it does, you'll want to meet it with as much of your strength, perspective, and presence as possible.

In the meantime, today deserves more than whatever energy your worries have left behind.

Quote Origins

Although this quotation is widely attributed to Corrie ten Boom (April 15, 1892 – April 15, 1983), its earliest documented version appeared in an 1859 sermon titled Anxious Care by Alexander Maclaren (February 11, 1826 – May 5, 1910), a Scottish Baptist minister and influential religious writer. Corrie ten Boom was a Dutch watchmaker, Holocaust survivor, and author best known for her memoir The Hiding Place (1971), which recounts her family's efforts to protect Jewish people during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. After surviving imprisonment at Ravensbrück, she devoted much of her later life to speaking about faith, forgiveness, and hope. Although there is no reliable evidence that she originated the quotation, her life offers a moving example of the courage required to act according to one's values when the future is uncertain.

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