Don’t
avoid worry. Understand it.
In the time that
you spend worrying, you are missing living! You cannot do both at the same
time. You can either live. Or you can worry. If you are worrying, be sure, you
may be alive, breathing, seeing and doing, but you are not
living! The nature of the human mind is that it will keep churning thoughts
incessantly and most of them will be about your worries. If you want to stop
worrying, then that want may now become a new worry!
Instead understand
why you worry in the first place. You worry about things, people, events,
money, health, relationships, jobs, because you want them in your control or
you want to know more about them or both. And when you are unable to do any of
that, you worry. You say that you want a job. Is that a worry? Hardly. Will you
get that job? Now, that’s a worry: because you want to control the outcome of
your want and you want information about the future. My wife has gone to meet a
friend. Is that a worry? Not really. But who is that friend? It is this greed
for the detail, for that information, that will spawn a worry. And then the
issue is no longer about the wife meeting the friend, it is about the gender of
the friend and then it morphs into another, new, horrific worry: Is my wife cheating
on me?
How do you contain
this human urge to want to control what’s going on and/or keep seeking
information on what’s going on? The simple truth is, you can’t. So, wanting to
stop worrying is an improbable vision to begin with. What you can do, however,
is to attempt living. When you are filling out your job application, for
instance, why do you worry about the outcome of the effort? Focus on the
application you are preparing. Pour your heart into it. Don’t let your mind
wander. Bring it to attend on the only, supremely important, singular task at
that moment in your Life, the job application. You will never enjoy a sunrise
if you keep thinking about your nightmares. Even if you are at the most
beautiful resort in the Pacific, you will not even see the sun rise if you are
not present in that moment.
The cure to
worrying is like the cure to diabetes. Once a diabetic, always a diabetic. At
best, you can astutely manage your diabetes with your strict diet and exercise
regimen. Even a day’s, or even a meal’s complacency or indulgence, can spike
your sugar levels. So it is with worrying. You cannot stop worrying. Period.
But you can always start living. When you live, in
the present, no worry can plague you! Will you please live, worry-free,
today, a day that has been crafted exquisitely for you?
