Why worry?

How many times did you hear or say the word "worry" in the last week?  Sometimes we substitute "worry" with "stress", as in "I stress about the weather next week when I'm...." But it's the same thing.

It's ingrained in our thoughts to say we are worried about this, that or the other.  Often without really thinking about saying it.

The habit to worry was formed over a long period of time through cultural conditioning - you'd better worry about your future, your job, what other people will think of you, and whatever else...  We all do our bit to transfer the worry habit on to the next generation too.  Sad but true.

Watch a group of 4 or 5 year old kids and see if they "worry" so much.  Not really, hey?  Only because we haven't managed to instill the habit in them yet.  It takes a bit of time.  Give the grown-ups a few years to do their thing.

What do we worry about?

More than often, our worries are about possible future events.  Things that may or may not happen.  Kind of like drying yourself before you get into the shower.  Not effective, is it?  But we do in nevertheless, sometimes in abundance.  I recently witnessed such a case.  It was not a pretty sight. 

(Are statistics available to show how often the future things we worry about come true or not?  Let me know if you are aware of any please.  I think we all know from personal experience what those stats will reveal.)

Sometimes we worry about things that already happened, an event in the past that we cannot change.  That sounds illogical, doesn't it?  Yet we do it.  Crying over spilt milk, as the saying goes.  It's the habit and we can't help ourselves.

There are different degrees of worrying, from the minor concern without a lasting effect beyond the utterance of the worry.  It reinfoces the habit though. Then we get the really bad, all consuming worry.  This kind of worry is always accompanied by the nasty cousins, fear and anxiety.

They say worrying puts your brain into the fight or flight mode.  This makes it easy for fear and anxiety to join the party.  Worry affects our bodies in all sorts of ways, from insomnia and high blood pressure to lack of concentration and even heart attacks.  (Now there's something to worry about!)

Do we have to worry?

Worry often gives a small thing a big shadow - Swedish proverb.

We don't have to worry.  Definitely not to the extent we usually do.  To worry is a habit and therefor it can be undone.

Worrying is not caring.  Worrying is not helpful.  Worrying is the opposite of control. 

Acknowledge that to worry is counter productive.  Write down your worries.  I don't mean run over them in your head, I mean write down your worries on a piece of paper.

Read your written worries out loud to yourself.  This will help you realise how silly some of your worries are.  Now cross those out.  Also cross out the worries you have no control over.  This should leave you with a much shorter list of worries.

Analyse the real worries on your list, one at a time.  Determine what you can do to eliminate the worry.  I'll repeat this: Pay particular attention to things that you have control over and things you don't have control over.  Accept that certain events are out of your control, period.

Write down the action steps you can take for each of your remaining worries.  Then take action!  Sounds simple, and it is.  I'd like to know of a single instance where worrying is more effective than taking action.  Please let me know if you can think of one.

Worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra problem by chewing bubble gum - Mary Schmich.