I’m a serial contemplator. Which is really just a less judgmental way of saying I worry a lot. In junior high I worried about making new friends. In high school I worried about getting good grades. And in college I worried about landing the right job after college.

Because what if I never made a new friend after my parents move us two hours away? And what if my grades weren’t good enough to get me into college? And what if I ended up flipping burgers the rest of my life?

But I did make a new friend in junior high. In fact, I met my best friend. (We actually live together — she’s my wife now.) And it turned out my book smarts were enough to get me into college. And the cherry on top — the proof that worrying really is a futile practice — I landed my dream job as well.

Research shows that 99.9% of worrying is useless and that your mental capacity would be spent better thinking about something else. Actually, I made up that statistic. But it is completely true that worrying is a pointless activity.

Rarely do the what-ifs ever materialize. And when they do, they’re often a different version or there’s a second option or path.

Here’s the back story to my dream job — you know, the one I spent all that time worrying about? It wasn’t the job I had envisioned in college. I actually had a completely different idea for a dream job. It started during a seventh grade report I had to write about what I wanted to be when I grew up and the idea stuck with me all the way through college. And I got that job.

But it turned out it wasn’t much of a dream job.

So I decided to create my own dream job. It required a lot of sweat and tears. But today I get to wake up and go to that job.

My challenge to — and to myself: Stop worrying. It’s a waste of time and energy.