Personally: - see the first step, the very next step, and that's it. You don't need to know what step 2,748 is about let alone how to solve it to take the next

Personally: - see the first step, the very next step, and that's it. You don't need to know what step 2,748 is about let alone how to solve it to take the next door. (formally: no premature optimization). All you need is the end-goal (general direction) and the next step to move forward, at all times. This considerably narrows the magnitude of freedom/choice locally, which feels comforting. - Anxiety is "nostalgia about the future". Let that sink in for a minute. It's a "FOMO" regarding a desirable state that you have not yet encountered. There's a word for a more positive take of a slightly different thing: "saudade". In this I find there's a middle ground of acceptance and longing that strikes the right balance to keep a positive mind about the future. - Make a decision, and stick to it. In other words, be quick to decide but slow to change. The trick in life is not to "do what you love" (or make the decisions you think are right: spoiler, you'll be wrong 50% of the time). The trick is to "love what you do", to learn that mindset, which is how we give a real chance to the paths we take (not half-ass it, not work actively against your own success). If you learn to love all that you do, then suddenly the stakes are very different, and good/bad decisions are more complex, more shaded. That's good, like increasing resolution to better "see". It becomes easier to navigate, like your vessel has a better map. - Every single decision you made in life, you did your best at the time with the information you had. Nobody tries to fail on purpose, nobody wants to make the wrong decision. Therefore, 1. there is no point in regret, only in learning lessons; 2. Hindsight is 20/20 but has no practical purpose except implemented as action in the present (to solve a real current problem). Now this is how I "tame" my own mind, when thinking of those things. Stoicism was my entry point into such self-control, self-knowledge to begin with.