Avoiding ‘Lee George’ moments
Lee George was the weatherman on KODE channel 12 in Joplin, Mo., when my family lived there during the ’60s and early ’70s. We could depend on Lee George to give us an accurate forecast — most of the time. Like every meteorologist, he could only give his best estimation of what the weather would be.
One of his less auspicious moments occurred March 17, 1970, when he forecast snow flurries and Joplin had a record-breaking snowstorm (I still remember that storm). He never lived that one down — 40-plus years later a weatherman wrote about not wanting to have a “Lee George moment.”
There is a way meteorologists can avoid having Lee George moments: always forecast unpleasant weather. Forecast thunderstorms if the weather is supposed to be pleasant. Forecast bitter cold when the temperature is supposed to be mild. Forecast a record-breaking snowstorm when all the signs point to light flurries. A meteorologist doing this might be right on occasion, but won’t likely keep a job for long.
In the mental health world there’s a pattern of thinking related to this called “forecasting” or “fortunetelling error.” Some folks tend to believe things will turn out badly in the future, even if things are going well in the present. I’ve even had clients tell me that they know tomorrow is going to be unpleasant because today is going too well.
This way of thinking develops over a lifetime and becomes part of you, so it’s hard to recognize if you’re doing it. One way to find out: if you’re feeling anxious or depressed, but your current circumstances are not particularly threatening or depressing, “fortunetelling error” may be the reason. Once you’ve exposed the pattern, you can start challenging it. Here’s one way that helped me: I would tell myself “many times in the past I believed bad things were going to happen, but the fact that I’m sitting here now tells me that I somehow survived every one of them — and I’ll survive whatever is coming my way this time.”
If worry about the future is robbing you of life in the present, give us a call at 6223580. Perhaps we can help.