Hi guys . . thanks so much for these responses. Oak, the flipping a coin thing sounds really cool (and I think I read about it somewhere else too) and something I want to try when my heart and head are in the right place to really gauge my reactions.
LaFemme, what does the expression "don't borrow trouble" mean? I'm embarrassed but I don't know . . .
OTT, I know what you mean about beating yourself up for being wrong. I also know that right now I'm living in fear of having that feeling in the future. Which I know I can't do. And I appreciate your advice about looking at the long term. A lot of the things I want now have good short term benefits and the things that I am fearing are the ones that have the long term potential. I wonder if it's part of whatever's wrong with my brain that I am much more comfortable with the short term . . .
For a long time I have sort of believed that given options it's wiser to do whatever seems more challenging. The bigger challenges seem to have the bigger rewards. Giving up drinking was one of those decisions, and it was a good one. I could continue to suffer through alcoholism or I could do the harder work of changing that part of my life. Now that some time has gone by (11 months) the hard part is over (I keep thinking I need to change my tag line). I like my life better now. It was a scary, scary decision for me but I'm glad after all those years of considering it I finally followed through.
I also know that I am somewhat depressive naturally and can get caught up in negatives. I mentioned before that I'm worried about moving to another place for a job. The place is somewhere I have lived before and sometimes I get overwhelmed by thinking about being back there because I am socially anxious and it's a smaller town which means more running into people you know, etc. But by coincidence I found a video on my phone the other day from the last time I was there and it brought back really happy memories . . . so sometimes I think I work myself into a froth of worry and that's the really bad part.
I am going to keep coming back to this thread over the next few weeks and use the tools you guys have given me. . . thanks so much guys.