It took me all the way to my mid-twenties to realize I am an introvert. Some of my friends laugh at me when I say that and tell me it’s pretty obvious, but I definitely missed the memo! In my teens and early twenties, I would feel guilty noticing that my mood would shift if I had been around people too much. Socializing didn’t feel unusually difficult for me, and I genuinely did enjoy the company of my friends, so I wasn’t self-aware enough to realize that too much time without solitude would deplete my energy. What finally made this blatantly obvious was my first move out of my hometown, when everyone around me was new all at once.

I don’t know about you, but if I ever have a bad experience with something, I have a tendency to say, “This must not be for me,” and never touch that thing again. A perfect example of this is my early childhood experience with swimming. My parents had enrolled me in swimming lessons, and just a few days later, we found ourselves spending the weekend at our local lake. I was eager to show them what I had learned, and ignoring my dad’s better judgment, I lunged straight into the murky lake waters. The next thing I remember was seeing darkness everywhere, with a bright light in the center and a hand reaching down toward me. Is this… the bright light at the end of the tunnel? Did I just… die?

King Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived (1 Kings 3:12), wrote the book of Ecclesiastes, reflecting on how many of the things we pursue in life are meaningless. From courtroom injustices to history repeating itself, Solomon has much to say about how the world works. One topic we can learn much from Solomon about is our daily work.

The story of Job is relatable to us all. After tremendous loss, Job asks God, “why?” We are given a unique perspective into Job’s circumstances, hearing the behind-the-scenes as God allows his testing to happen. The reader also gets to know how the story ends—with God lovingly restoring to Job all that he had lost. As Job laments and grieves all that he had lost, he makes a few profound statements that are oddly prophetic.

Did you know that a Penn State University study shows that roughly 85 to 91 percent of our worst-case worries never come true? Still, I recently heard some great advice on how to take those worst-case fears and use them to your advantage by interrupting the thought and imagining yourself responding well if that situation happened instead. I took this advice and ran with it recently. While it was helpful at first, it didn’t take long for me to miss the whole point and go overboard with this practice, wanting to be overly prepared for any possible difficult interaction that could ever come my way. That definitely defeated the purpose and intention of said advice.