We seek the fulfilment of strong romantic relationships and friendships, yet striving too hard to achieve security in such relationships stifles them… - Oliver Burkeman

Confronting the worst-case scenario saps it of much of its anxiety-inducing power. Happiness reached via positive thinking can be fleeting and brittle; negative visualisation generates a vastly more dependable calm.

It can be alarming to realize just how much of life gets shaped by what we're actively trying to avoid. We talk about 'not getting around to things' as if it were merely a failure of organization, or of will. But often the truth is that we invest plenty of energy in making sure we never get around to them. It's an old story: some task, or some entire domain of life, makes you anxious whenever you think about it, so you just don't go there.

The startling conclusion at which they had all arrived, in different ways, was this: that the effort to try to feel happy is often precisely the thing that makes us miserable. And that it is our constant efforts to eliminate the negative - insecurity, uncertainty, failure, or sadness - that is what causes us to feel so insecure, anxious, uncertain, or unhappy.