A man and his wife once set out to visit a friend, whose house was a few miles distant. The way was very old and was considered unsafe. They began to fret about it.

“How shall we cross that bridge?” the woman asked her husband. 'I shall never dare to step on it, and there is no boat that can take us across the river'.

“How right you are, agreed the man. 'It is unsafe to cross it. What if it should give way while we are on it? We shall be drowned!'

“Or suppose, continued the wife, 'you step on a rotten plank and break your leg, who would take care of me and the children ?'

“I don’t know,” added the man for his part. 'What would become of us, if I broke a leg? Perhaps, we would all starve to death.'

And so it went on. Both of them kept on worrying, imagining all sorts of misfortunes happening to them, until they actually reached the bridge.

To their pleasant surprise they found that a new bridge had been built. How happily they crossed over it safely! If they had not indulged in negative thinking, they might have saved themselves all anxiety!