Everything Works Out Perfectly: My Personal Formula for Stress, Uncertainty, and Anxiety

I’ve told this story before, but it feels like an appropriate time to real tell it because 1) my sister is in town and we love to laugh at my father’s quips that nobody seems to understand except his children, and 2) in case you missed it, it’s election week and this is has become my go to mental framework to regain my sanity in times of chaos and uncertainty. 

I was in my early twenties. My father and I were sitting in a dimly lit bar having a few pints, as one does. Why Irish pubs are always dimly lit is beyond me, and it’s even further beyond me how my father finds “Irish pubs” in states like North Carolina or Texas.

At the time, I was taking a sabbatical from college. I was personal training and living with my sister, and I felt stuck. I was questioning the path I was on in life, and what to do next.

One of the greatest anxieties suffered by millennials in the western world is what choices to make. In our early twenties, we feel as if we have an endless number of options, so we sit there paralyzed asking ourselves, “What if I make the wrong choice?"

What if I marry the wrong person? What if I choose the wrong career path? What if all that bitcoin I own really is fools gold? Should I move to LA and sing karaoke or stay closer to home in Charlotte?

Whereas our parents and grandparents were limited in what they were exposed to, we see all the possibilities and were raised to “be anything we want to be.” My dad’s first marriage was to a woman he knew from the old neighborhood, and his first career path was nudged along by his entire social circle telling him that getting a job with the city of Boston was “as good as it gets.”

We can now we can be living in Orlando wondering whether that influencer we follow in Seattle is our soul mate? While I am writing copy for a start-up in Austin, I see my best friend from middle school pursuing physical education in Virginia and wonder if I should’ve followed his lead?

Despite Gen X thinking we’re all a bunch of whiny pansies with no mental toughness, this is a legitimate psychological challenge that other generations haven’t faced and there’s no roadmap for how to navigate. 

Psychologist Barry Schwartz wrote a book titled "The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less," where he argues that the more choices we have, the more likely we are “to anticipate regretting our decisions later on.” Schwartz says that these unlimited options can lead to making worse choices, a sense a dissatisfaction the choices we do make, or we can become so paralyzed that we make no choice at all (the worst path).

Back in that North Carolinian Irish pub, I was venting these anxieties out to my pops. I felt uneasy. I had no idea where I was headed. And after blabbering on for about 15-minutes, my dad looks at me and says, “Yeah, EWOP, Dan.” (pronounced eeee-WOP), and then proceeds to take a sip of his pint and look up to check the Red Sox score.

“EWOP?” I said. “What kind of advice it that? What does that even mean?!” 

“Everything Works Out Perfectly, my son.” he said.

As ridiculous as it sounds, it actually made me feel better. Maybe it was the amount of conviction he spoke with. Maybe it was because I was on my fourth pint. Maybe it’s because I trust and respect my dad; that he had some sort of old man wisdom that I just couldn’t see yet. All I knew is that I felt better.

It’s a quirky little phrase that has stuck with me through the years. I still use it to calm down when I’m feeling stressed, anxious, or uncertain about the future.

You’d think I interpreted that cooky little acronym in a rose-colored glasses type of way. That the future is bright and everything is perfect. It’s all butterflies and rainbows. Life is a box of chocolates. Carpe that diem. Go get ‘em, tiger. Everything happens for a reason. Make lemonade with those goddamn lemons. (Alright, I’m out of clichès)

But I didn’t. 

There are three psychological phenomena that my brain locks into when I hear EWOP.

1. Anxiety comes from being too attached to future outcomes (typically negative ones, duh).

There's an old parable about a farmer who had worked his crops for a long time. One day his horse ran away, and when his neighbors heard, they ran over with gift boxes and condolences. 

The neighbors consoled the farmers, "Such bad luck," they said, "you must be so sad."

"We'll see," the farmer replied.

The next morning, the horse returned with some friends: two other wild horses.

"How wonderful," the neighbors exclaimed! "Not only did your horse return, but you received two more. What great fortune you have!" 

"We'll see," answered the farmer.

The following day, his son tried to ride one of the untamed horses, was thrown off, and broke his leg. The neighbors again came to offer their sympathy on his misfortune. "Now your son cannot help you with your farming," they said. "What terrible luck you have!"

"We'll see," replied the old farmer.

The following week, military officials came to the village to conscript young men into the army. Seeing that the son's leg was broken, they passed him by. The neighbors congratulated the farmer on how well things had turned out. "Such great news. You must be so happy!"

The farmer looked again at his neighbors (not getting the hint) and kindly responded, "We'll see," 

Many of our anxieties arise from a future that never comes to fruition or a future that we misinterpret. It's that old saying that economists have "correctly predicted eleven of the last three recessions." But even when our anxieties do become a reality, we're far better equipped to handle them than we think…

2. We're more capable of handling adversity than we think 

My paternal grandmother used to work 3pm until 11:30pm. She'd take the train home, arriving around midnight. She would stay up reading until 1am and be back up at 5am to get breakfast for my grandfather and make his lunch. She would get her seven kids off to school by 8am and go back to bed until 10:30am, wake up, watch The Price is Right, get ready for work, and head out by 2:30pm for work. Rinse and repeat. Day after day.

My maternal grandmother was expected to stay at home and be a housewife. She couldn't get a credit card without her husband's signature. It was frowned upon for women to work. She did it anyway (without her husband's blessing). She also was the first woman in her upstate New York town to join a gym and build some muscle. 

My family is filled with story after story of grit, reliance, courage, and toughness. So is yours. Humans have gotten to this point because, as the kids say, "we're built for this shit." We're a lot more durable, capable, and resilient than we know. 

So even if your worst-case scenario becomes a reality, you're more capable of handling it than you think, and you'll likely be better off for it…

3. The thought of a painful experience is often worse than the actual experience

When you think about your life, what have been some of the most transformative experiences? If you're as human as the rest of us, it's likely a story of pain and turmoil followed by a period of growth and change.

During this time of my life that brought me to an Irish pub in North Carolina, I was going through a breakup, had a few run-ins with the law 😳 , and had a college enrollment status of TBD. It was a rough time for your boy, but that period fueled some of the most beautiful aspects of my current life. That breakup led to finding my wife. The time away from school led me towards a unique career I wouldn't have had otherwise.

Sometimes, the things we're most grateful for in life bloom out of some nasty soil.

Let's finish where we began, shall we? In reality, EWOP is a rallying cry for optimism. It's a reminder to trust that you can figure out whatever comes your way. That's really where all this stress comes from, right? Feeling like we might not be able to handle it when the other foot finally drops?

Psychology research tells us that we can rewire our brains to be more optimistic. Having a training totem, like EWOP, can start to rewrite our programming. And we know that optimism can actually lead to more successful outcomes. More optimistic people take fewer sick days, recover more quickly from illness, and have better memory, more friends, creativity, and energy.

The difference between true optimists and rose-colored-glasses-optimists is that optimists don't ignore real life. They are "realists" who understand there's potential in pain and opportunity in uncertainty.

I think that's what EWOP means: that we can see the situation we are currently in, but we believe our actions matter, believe that everything might just work out for the better, and believe that if our worst nightmares become a reality, we can deal with it. 

So the next time you're anxious about an uncertain future, I really don't have much to tell you. I guess all I can say is:

EWOP, my son. *Sips Beer*