The real sting here is recognizing that worry isn't weakness or mere nervousness—it's actually a *creative act*, just pointed in the wrong direction. Your mind, the very faculty that solves problems and dreams up possibilities, becomes a machine for manufacturing future disasters instead. When you catch yourself rehearsing worst-case scenarios at three in the morning, you're burning the same mental fuel that could be sketching actual solutions; a student might spend an evening imagining how their presentation could fail rather than imagining how to structure their opening line. What makes this observation sharper than "stop worrying" is that it doesn't ask you to suppress imagination—it asks you to redirect it, to put that same creative power toward outcomes you *want* rather than ones you dread.