I was reading Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maude Montgomery. This is a book I’ve read more than once, and one I highly recommend for its warmth and its many characters. In it, I came across the expression, “to borrow trouble”. I hadn’t heard that idiom in quite some time and decided to look it up.

Matthew 6:34 is the usual reference (although others have likely thought similarly before that, Epicurus for one).

“Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.”

In other words, each day has enough trouble of its own without making it greater, by borrowing problems from a future that hasn’t happened and may never.

We all worry. Often, we must anticipate what comes next to be ready. I believe in that. Our tendency, I think, is to anticipate too much. I do that and when I do, I force myself to look around me. Inevitably, I find no immediate threat. The problem is in my mind, not in front of me. This tactic to reduce stress has worked for me. Perhaps, it will for you.