Don't Go There: Worry Can be a Bottomless and Useless Pit!

I'll be the first to admit that I am prone to worrying, from time to time.

I worry about our finances; I worry about getting ill; I worry about our (adult) kids; I worry about a late frost killing the new plants in the garden.

I suppose we should admit that worry is a natural human emotion, BUT it can also easily become a bottomless pit we struggle to get out of.

Back when I spent a lot of time attending self-development and spiritual workshops, I remember one of my Teachers once pointing out that our THOUGHTS about a thing tend to be far worse than the THING, itself... and most of our worries take the form of working ourselves into "quite a state" by imagining an outcome that's actually far worse than the worst actual real-world scenario.

As soon as the new year hits, I typically start to worry about paying our property taxes... it's a big bill, and the consequences of not being able to pay it could be what they call a "Property tax foreclosure." So I worry.

In past years I didn't worry as much because our work and income was more stable and reliable... and we generally made enough money to set something aside every month towards that annual bill.

Of course, the worry is largely useless.

The real answer is that we may find ourselves having to borrow a couple of thousand dollars on our credit cards to make the payment on time, at the end of April. Nobody's going to come in and "take away" our home... that's just the worry speaking.

And this is how worry works, in our lives.

We worry that we're going to get sick when we finally get a chance to go see family members in some distant location, even though the actual likelihood we'll get sick is close to zero.

We worry we're going to get laid off from our job because several people at our place of work recently were, even though we know perfectly well that we have worked there for ten years and they are only laying off very junior people who joined the company in the last two years.

The human mind is very adept at fabricating "disaster scenarios" where no actually exist! And I have been as guilty as the next person, of doing this!

I suppose we each have our own ways of coping; for me "getting the FACTS" tends to be the best thing I can do for myself. As long as I am operating in the realm of "maybe" and "perhaps," the worry machine seems to run free... but once I ascertain just how small the odds of something bad happening actually is, then I calm down.

I'm by no means perfect, but I am getting better...

Wait... should I be worried about "Not being perfect...?"

Nah!

Thanks for reading and have a great (and worry free!) remainder of your week!

How about YOU? Are you a worrier? Or do you just take things in stride? Do you think up "worst case scenarios" or do they not even occur to you? Give me a shout back... Because — after all — SOCIAL content is about interacting, right? Leave a comment — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!

(All text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is ORIGINAL CONTENT, created expressly for this platform — NOT A CROSSPOST!!!)
Created at 20210217 23:10 PST
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