How Chris Deals With Spiraling

I recently sat down with my friend Chris and asked him what he does when life feels hard, something’s gone wrong or he’s spiraling. And he walked me through his whole system.

He starts by reminding himself: “I have experienced hard times in the past, and I have somehow, some way, gotten through them.” That’s proof he can do it again.

“Don’t sweat the small stuff”, we’ve all heard it.

Most advice tells you to save your worry for the important stuff. But Chris landed on something more useful: don’t sweat the big stuff.

Here’s what he means. The big stuff like a parent dying, losing a job, a relationship ending, carries enormous emotional weight. But the actual event itself is often outside your control. You can grieve, you can feel it, you can process it. But the spinning, the ruminating, the desperate mental effort to change what’s already happened or prevent what’s inevitable, that doesn’t help you move forward.

And the small stuff genuinely doesn’t deserve the energy you’re giving it. It won’t matter in the long run.

“Don’t sweat the small stuff because it’s small. Don’t sweat the big stuff because you can’t do shit about it. I’m just vibing, man.”

Chris clarified what he actually means: he’s making a distinction between things you can control and things you can’t. Big and small aren't the real categories for him. Controllable and uncontrollable are.

“What matters is identifying the narrow band of things where you actually have leverage; where your effort might genuinely help you move forward. That’s where your attention belongs. Everything else, big or small, gets acknowledged without consuming you.”

In other words: sweat only what you can control.

Chris isn’t religious, but he keeps coming back to the Serenity Prayer:

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.”

“It’s basically Stoicism,” Chris said. The ancient Stoics built their entire philosophy around this same idea. Suffering comes from trying to control what’s outside your control. Your job is to identify what’s actually in your hands (your actions, your responses, your effort) and let go of everything else (outcomes, other people’s choices, events beyond your influence).

“You can’t just have it ( The Serenity Prayer) whispered in your ear and automatically change your personality,” Chris said. It’s something you have to actually do. Something you have to constantly work at.

Here’s what it looks like for Chris:

Step 1: Sit down. Take a deep breath.

Step 2: Remind yourself you’ve survived hard things before… That you’ve been through difficult things, and somehow you got through them.

Step 3: Identify what you can actually control in this situation.

Not what you wish you could control. What you actually can. That’s where your energy goes.

Step 4: Accept that you might only get 2% there today.

Some days, he barely moves the needle. He sits down, takes that breath, reminds himself of what he’s survived, focuses on what he can control, and still only gets 2% of the way to that calm, grounded state.

“Trying your best might only mean you get 2%, but you know, then you repeat it and you repeat it and eventually it compounds...”

Tomorrow, another 2%. The day after, maybe 3%. Microscopic progress that adds up through consistent repetition, even when it barely seems to work.

Chris says that these aren’t a cure-all, but they can take the edge off the hard times sometimes.

That’s the goal. Making things slightly more bearable. Focusing energy only where you have leverage and letting the rest exist without consuming you.

A note from Chris:

Chris wanted me to mention something: “I’m aware of the factor luck plays into these things. I’m not necessarily prescribing things to other people. The things that work for me won’t necessarily work for everyone. But I do hope maybe I can say something people haven’t considered yet and maybe it could help someone.”

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