This week was the anniversary of my vasectomy surgery. If you know anything about vasectomy you know it's a low risk, outpatient surgery with little to no pain.

At least that's what most people experience.

My surgery recovery was anything but normal. I experienced a double infection, excruciating pain, and debilitating physical limitations that make it impossible to even walk at times.

I've written about the anxiety I've experienced in the past related to my wife's health, but in the aftermath of my vasectomy experience, my own health anxiety skyrocketed.

For 3 grueling months, my world was turned upside down. Sitting was mostly impossible, aches and pains dominated my experience, and what used to be a normal life for me vanished out the window.

I quickly realized how unprepared I was for a setback of this magnitude.

Anxious thoughts about always being in pain, or never being able to run again (my most cherished past-time) consumed my attention.

It took every ounce of determination and patience I had for me to work through the storm of anxiety, allow my recovery journey to unfold, and finally get back to running some 10 weeks after surgery.

Since February of 2023, I've been consistently running at least 10 miles or more every single weekend with only rare exceptions.

Running is something I look forward to each weekend since I know I'll be tested physically and mentally and enjoy the constant contact with doing something hard.

For these runs, the distance is unknown. This was an intentional decision I made years ago to help train my mind for combating anxiety. The run starts at 10 miles, and often ends there too, but I never know the exact distance on any given run.

By intentionally introducing unpredictability, I’m practicing overcoming my inclination to unquestionably believe anxious thoughts.

Through repetition, I’ve uprooted those habitual snap judgments and now have substantial evidence that my body is capable of much more than my mind often would have me believe.

This is what I intend to explore in this essay. Being open to the possibility that life can unfold in unexpected or surprising ways. And how that can help us when it comes to anxiety.

Once upon a time in a small, bustling village, there lived a young woman named Clara. Clara was known for her determination and hard work running a modest bakery that she had inherited from her late grandmother.

The bakery was her pride and joy, but recently, it had fallen on hard times. The ovens were old and frequently broke down, the roof leaked, and customers were dwindling because a new, fancy bakery had opened up in town.

Every day, Clara woke up early, determined to fix the problems. She would patch up the roof as best she could, try to repair the ovens with whatever tools she had, and spend hours baking bread and pastries, hoping to attract customers.

Despite her best efforts, it seemed like everything was falling apart faster than she could fix it. She grew tired and disheartened, feeling trapped by the problems surrounding her.

One rainy afternoon, as Clara sat in her bakery, staring at the dripping ceiling, an old friend named Leo walked in. Leo had traveled the world and was known for his cheerful and optimistic outlook on life. Seeing Clara's distressed state, he decided to sit with her and listen to her troubles.

After hearing her out, Leo smiled warmly and said, "Clara, I see you’re focusing on fixing everything that's wrong. But what if, instead of concentrating on these problems, you looked at the possibilities? What if you asked yourself what you could do differently, rather than just trying to change what already is?"

Clara was puzzled but curious. Leo continued, "When I was in a village far away, I met a baker who transformed his small bakery by being open and looking for new opportunities. Instead of just baking bread and pastries, he started offering cooking classes, hosting small community events, and even collaborating with local farmers for fresh ingredients. His bakery became a hub of the community."

Inspired by Leo’s story, Clara decided to try and shift her perspective. She started thinking creatively about what she could do differently. She organized a community food drive to give back to those who were hungry, involving her neighbors and friends in the effort. She reached out to the local farmers and began using fresh, locally-sourced ingredients, which attracted customers interested in supporting local businesses.

Clara also started offering baking classes on weekends, teaching children and adults how to bake her grandmother’s special recipes. Her bakery became a place where people gathered to learn, share, and enjoy each other’s company.

To her amazement, things started changing for Clara.

One man who loved cooking with Clara just so happened to be a roofer and offered to help Clara fix the roof free of charge. Unbeknownst to her, friends and neighbors pooled together money for Clara to buy a brand new oven.

She even collaborated with the new bakery in town, organizing joint events that celebrated their love for baking and brought the community together.

Slowly but surely, Clara’s bakery flourished once more. It wasn’t just a place to buy bread and pastries; it was a vibrant, bustling community center.

By opening herself up to new possibilities and focusing on what could be, rather than focusing on her problems, Clara transformed her bakery and found joy and success in ways she had never imagined.

Over the course of my life, and especially during my vasectomy recovery, I've learned how important it is to focus on what's possible and not what's problematic.

This lesson came the hard way. After decades of battling anxiety and feeling helpless I finally shifted my approach to empowerment and confidence instead of victimhood and blame.

When I stopped viewing anxiety as a problem to solve and began seeing it as an ongoing endeavor requiring constant practice, I was able to start recognizing the possibilities on how I could move through it and improve my situation.

I developed rock solid processes and tools. I learned more about my triggers and why they were so painful for me. And I opened up to the possibility I could be anxiety-free.

It's more difficult with certain situations, but when viewed through possibility instead of problem, life unfolds in beautiful ways our minds could have never predicted.

A key phrase I use to help reinforce my intention to focus on possibilities and not problems is "let's see."

This expression prompts me to thoroughly explore every nook and cranny of possible options, giving the situation a chance to unfold differently from how my mind is presenting the supposed forgone conclusion.

Here's an example:

Imagine you have a hike planned with friends after a long week of work. Then, the morning of, a freak thunderstorm rolls in and rains out the hike. You could become upset and focus your energy on the "problem" of not being able to go on the hike.

Or you could focus on "let's see" and allow life to unfold as it will. Instead of the hike, you could decide to visit the new cafe in town that you've been wanting to check out and end up meeting your future spouse there that day.

By not going on the hike, you could save yourself from a falling rock, or poisonous snake bite.

Ultimately, we never know why things happen the way they do.

What we perceive as a problem might, in fact, be infinitely better than the alternative scenario that could have unfolded if the thing we thought was a problem hadn’t occurred.

This is why it doesn't make sense to focus on problems. There are challenges and difficulties in life for sure, but each of them requires a certain amount of action and nothing more.

We're already at a biological disadvantage since our minds are problem seeking problem solving supercomputers, so it takes an extra concerted effort to purposely retrain the behavior of viewing the world through possibilities instead of problems.

Society and our environment has programmed us since birth to hunt for problems too, which means it's easy to falsely assume that this behavior is normal.

It's not. And it's a choice.

I remember laying in bed one particularly painful evening about 6 weeks into my recovery.

My focus was, and had been, on how much pain I was in, how long the recovery had been, and fear about never being able to run again or even do "normal" physical activities.

Suddenly, an intuitive thought flashed across my mind—you need to write down what's going on.

I grabbed a notebook and what I can only explain as channeling came through me. I didn't consciously write the lessons I had learned up until that point, but before I knew it, my small notebook had dozens of key insights that completely changed the way I viewed what was happening with my recovery.

The fear and anxiety that had dominated my experience lifted, and I realized that this situation was here to teach me—and I needed to be a willing student.

By being open to the possibilities, and open to life, I transformed not only my recovery experience, but my entire experience of anxiety.

I recognize it’s easy to express gratitude for an experience once you’re on the other side of it.

That’s why, for me, it was important to acknowledge, even in the darkest moments, that I knew light was coming.

In fact, I believe genuine appreciation for light is born out of an intimate familiarity with darkness.

Being physically disabled in the ways I was for ten weeks gifted me numerous insights, the most precious being experiential gratitude for just how wonderful my life is.

Not a single day goes by without me spontaneously, deeply appreciating whatever I happen to be doing - whether driving in the car, sitting on the porch, or sharing dinner with friends.

These seemingly ordinary, mundane, everyday activities are now peak experiences for me.

And it couldn't have come any other way than through transforming pain from a problem to a possibility.
​