What, Me Worry?
Posted March 23rd, 2015
Worry. It’s something we all do from time to time. Some of us do it more than others. In its most mild form, worry can help to a degree, getting us to look and plan ahead. However, if we tend to worry more than just a little, worry can become a problem, actually hindering us from thinking clearly and acting promptly. And at its worst, worry can be debilitating, leading to psychological problems like depression.
When we try to control our worry, however, we see how really slippery a character it is. Most of the stuff we worry about never happens, but that doesn’t stop people from worrying. They actually begin to associate worry with things turning out well, thinking that it was because they worried that they were successful. And so the worry continues, even though, more often than not, it is a cause of things going badly because it clouds our thinking.
And, ironically, in a kind of regression, when we don’t worry about something, we worry about not being worried, thinking that there is something wrong with us for not worrying.
But worry clouds our thinking in two sinister ways. When in the throes of worry, we are concerned about something bad happening. In other words, worry ignores the probability of something actually materializing. When we worry about something, we always see it as happening, and soon. Not only that, worry makes us believe the absolute worst scenario, again in defiance of the odds. So, when we worry about something, we see it happening soon, and we see it as being something really bad.
So, when you start worrying about something, you need to stop and ask yourself two questions:
1. What is the probability of it actually happening?
Again, most of the things we worry about never happen, so you need to bring a little pragmatism to the table and look at the odds of something actually occurring.
2. If it happens, how bad will it really be?
As mentioned, worry exaggerates the severity of whatever we worry about. It’s going to be a real catastrophe, according to our worry. But is it really?
So, worry is not about negative thoughts, but about wrong thoughts. It is simply an error of thinking, a mistake in thinking. So, in countering our worry, we need to get rid of those false thoughts with ones that are true.
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