What Does Worry Accomplish?

I used to be a really good at worrying about every little problem in life. Getting upset and worrying over an unexpected bill coming, or worrying over a car problem, or worrying about finishing a school paper before I had even started yet etc, there was always something disturbing my peace and prompting me to feel distress. Thankfully, I learned at an early age in life that worrying doesn't accomplish much besides keep us busy at the time. Worry focuses on the problem and it magnifies it in our mind so that we sometimes cannot see a solution or a way around it. And learning this has helped me to keep a good perspective whenever another chance to worry comes up in my life.

Worrying never fixed any of my problems. It just made it a lot harder for me to deal with my problems. Worrying can very easily steal your joy and peace of mind, replacing it with thoughts of fear over something that most likely hasn't happened yet. There are plenty of reasons that I could start worrying today if I wanted to: Recessions? Unemployment? Poverty? Wars? Political Corruption? But what good would worrying about these things do? Worrying means that we are dwelling on the problem and focusing on the mess, rather than trying to see ahead to the possible solution there could be.

The act of worrying is mentally active so it can feel like we are really busy when all we are doing is running through negative and hypothetical scenarios in our mind. There are so many other enjoyable things that we could do with our imagination besides sacrifice it to worrying and obsessing over life's problems. One important thing that I try to remind myself of whenever the worry surfaces, is to ask whether or not the cause is worth worrying over and quite often it isn't.

Worrying often won't change the outcome and usually doesn't solve any of our problems for us. Worry only prompts us to feel fear and anxiety, making our lives even more difficult for us and less enjoyable. Walt Disney once said that if you've already done your best, worrying won't make it any better for you. And ain't that the truth of the matter; worry is a waste of our time and energy.

Whenever a problem arises, I think to myself: is there anything I can do right now to try and help this problem? And if there isn't (which usually there isn't) then it becomes a lot easier for me to turn off away from the opportunity to worry. If we want more joy in our lives then one of the easiest ways to get it is to live more in the moment and worry less.