SHOULD YOU BE WORRIED?

"I've had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened" ...Mark Twain

Have you worried yet today? 

Chances are you have not once, but several times, dipped your toe into the worry pool today.  And perhaps by the end of the day, you'll have worried dozens of times, about the past, about the future, about your children, your parents, and yourself. 

We would all like to worry less, but it seems that some people seem to be fuelled by worry. Unfortunately, just like the flu, worry is contagious. Worried mothers, often create anxious children; worried bosses, create a worried team; and so on. 

If you are worried at work, about what so and so is going to think or do or say, chances are you've shared those worries with your compatriots and then caused them to go down a rabbit hole that wasn't even in their realm of consideration.

I'm not a worrier. I'm not totally immune, but overall, on the spectrum of worrying, I'm at the low end. Perhaps not worrying comes with being an optimist, believing that everything will always turn out for the better. Or because I know I can't change the past, and although we all need to have  a future oriented perspective, there is no point worrying about it. I also know that I'm pretty good at crisis management, if it comes to that.

"There are only two days in the year that nothing can be done. One is called yesterday and the other is called tomorrow. So today is the right day to love, believe, do and mostly live"....Dalai Lama

I am always struck by people who beat themselves up about what happened yesterday and then also go on to develop all sorts of "what-if" scenarios for tomorrow. And these are usually not the "happy" what-ifs. 

We can't just live in the moment. I get that. But we can't just live in the past or future either. There needs to be a balance. And we shouldn't worry about any of it.

Perhaps, it is just that I've heard about another person, who in age is a contemporary of mine, being given just a few weeks to live. And I wonder how much time she and others who are faced with the same unexpected, early ending of life, spent worrying about the future. And now there isn't any.

Please consider the downsides of worrying. As the quote which opened this blog says most things never happen, so not only have you wasted precious time, but you also negatively affected your body physiology (as opposed to positively affecting it by smiling as noted in yesterday's blog).

I challenge you to ask yourself this one question - If today was the last day of your life, would you be happy in how you spent it?

If not, don't worry about it. Change it tomorrow.

(Note: the picture depicted above is of Worry Dolls. Guatemalan children believe that before you go to bed at night you tell one worry to each doll, put the dolls under your pillow, when you get up in the morning your worries are gone.)