The Seat That Taught Me About Worry
It happened on a return trip from London on a bus operated by FlixBus. It was nothing dramatic. There was no thunder or grand revelation. It was just seat 7B.
Sometimes, life hides its lessons in the smallest corners, like an aisle seat on a long coach ride. I had my ticket scanned, boarded the bus and made my way down the aisle until i found my assigned seat: 7B. It was an aisle seat, not bad, but my very tall self immediately noticed something unsettling.
The seat in front of me, 6B, was tilted slightly backwards. It was not dramatic, but just enough to eat into my legroom. It leaned as if someone had quietly stolen a few inches of my comfort. My brain instantly started doing what brains do best: worrying about a future that hadn’t happened yet. Then i noticed something else.
Seat 7A, the window seat beside me, was empty. That should have comforted me, right? Instead, my imagination started writing stories. What if someone very tall or very big comes? What if the space becomes unbearable for the entire trip? I hadn’t even sat down properly, yet i was already suffering from scenarios that didn’t exist. Then came the backpack problem.
I tried placing my bag in the luggage rack above the seats to create some space, but it wouldn’t fit properly. I pushed, adjusted, turned it sideways, nothing. I tried a few other spots without much success. For a moment, the situation felt like a small chain of inconveniences forming a bigger discomfort. Seat leaning forward, possible cramped legroom and a backpack with no clear home.
You would think i was preparing for a twelve-hour survival expedition. Eventually, i stopped trying to fix everything, sat down and told myself something simple: Let the journey happen.
If someone comes to seat 7A, i’ll deal with it then and if the legroom becomes uncomfortable, i’ll adjust. If the bag becomes a problem, i’ll solve it later. For now, the bus hadn’t even started moving.
Well, the engine started, doors closed, trip began and guess what? No one ever came to seat 7A. The bus was only half full. All the elaborate discomfort scenarios my mind created never happened. Not one. I had spent the first part of the journey mentally wrestling with a problem that never existed in reality. That’s when the thought hit me. Life is full of seat 7A worries.
We imagine things that might go wrong: What if this opportunity fails, this person rejects me, this plan collapses or this situation becomes unbearable? So we suffer early, in advance and over stories that may never leave our imagination. Meanwhile, reality often turns out to be much calmer than the stories we create in our heads.
This doesn’t mean preparation is unnecessary. Preparation is wisdom, planning matters and adjusting for possible outcomes is part of being responsible.
However, worry is different from preparation. Preparation solves problems while worry rehearses fear. That bus ride reminded me of something simple: Many of the things we fear, situations we brace ourselves for, never show up or happen. Many of the 7A passengers we dread never board the bus. Yet, we carry the tension anyway.
Sometimes the wiser choice is to do what i eventually did on that ride. Sit down, breathe and let the journey unfold. Deal with reality when it arrives, not when imagination invents it. This is because more often than we realise, the bus will start moving……and seat 7A will remain empty.
