Why Worry?

(How To Take Control and Eliminate Needless Worrying)

Two executives were drowning their sorrows in the local tavern.

"My job is getting to me, I can't handle all the stress. I worry so much, I either can't sleep, or have terrible nightmares."

"I'm sleeping like a baby," said the other, "I wake every three hours and cry."

Most of the time worrying is worse than useless. If it was just useless it wouldn't be that bad, but worrying hurts us. It saps us of the joy of being alive and pushes aside the good things in our life. Worry also restricts your ability to think and act effectively. As the old saying goes, "It ain't no use putting up your umbrella until it rains." Knowing this, it makes sense that worry is derived from an Anglo-Saxon word that means to strangle or to choke.

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Can you stop all of your worrying? Of course not. If your son or daughter is extremely late coming home one evening or a loved one is in a car accident and you're en route to the hospital, it wouldn't be normal if you were worry free.

The type of worrying you should control and get rid of is needless worrying: anxiety over possible future events in our lives that we can not change, or that have no strong evidence of happening. Even then, there are things you can do to reduce the stress worrying causes.

These five steps will help you with any type of worrying:

Step one: Describe exactly what you are worried about.

There's a saying that "the demon we do not know is always worse than the demon we do know." The first step in problem solving is to make sure you have a clear picture of the problem. Also, by writing down or thinking out loud about your "worry" as if it's a problem you plan to solve, you get a sense of control. This feeling of control is an important key to reducing distress.

Step two: Make two lists.

One, of all the things related to your worry which you can do something about.
The second, of all the things completely out of your control.

Here are the lists I create when my daughter started driving.

One, of all the things related to your worry which you can do something about.

her knowledge of car jacking
the maintenance of her car
etc.

The second, of all the things completely out of your control.

other drivers
road conditions
weather
etc.

Step three: Brainstorm and research.

Ask other people for advice. So many of the problems in our life have been solved already by other humans we know. Hook up with a support group. Use search engines to find sites about the problem. You name it, there's information about it out there. All you need to do is look for it and ask about it.

Step four: This is the most important step of all.

DO SOMETHING!!!

Begin following through with the ideas you come up with in steps two and three. These are some of the actions I performed when my daughter got her driver's license, to prevent her from getting hurt or killed while driving.

• Bought her a fine emergency kit
• Talked to her about car jacking
• Gave her a bunch of literature on the topic
• Added her to my AAA subscription

Step five: Stop thinking about the things that are out of your control.

This is the hard one. If you're doing all you can to prevent the outcome from happening, the energy you spend worrying further is "worse than useless."

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Here's a brief story that illustrates how worrying can be worse than useless:

A couple started off their ride to visit a friend. The morning air was pleasant, and they enjoyed themselves until they happened to remember a certain bridge which was very old and probably unsafe.

"I shall never dare to go over that bridge," exclaimed the wife, "and we can't get across the river any other way."

"Oh," said the man, "I forgot that bridge. It is a bad place; suppose it should break through and we should fall into the water and drowned!"

"Or," said the woman, adding to his complaint, "suppose you should step on a rotten plank and brake your leg. What would become of me and the baby?"

"I don't know," responded the husband. "What would become of any of us, for I couldn't work, and we should all starve to death!"

So the anxious talk ran on until they reached the spot where the old bridge had stood -and lo, they discovered that since they had been there, it had been replaced with a new one!

All their anxiety had been worse than useless.

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