Reduce your Worry

"What Ifs" Never Help Anyone

by Amy E. Barr, The Lukeion Project

Several times this semester I (or my faculty colleagues) have gotten a note explaining that a student couldn’t complete an assignment because he or she was so consumed with worry related to the pandemic. I even know that some have stopped schooling entirely until they find some unspecified worry-free point in the future. Maybe 2021? 2022? Nobody knows. With this in mind, today’s blog is a note to all our worriers.

 Many have successfully grappled with the “what if” monster and conquered that beast or come to terms with it. The whole planet is suffering under uncertainties (as we have before and as we will once again). Why are some utterly gutted with overwhelming worry while others soldier on? Why must some pause life to tend their mountainous concerns while others adapt and move forward?

As a mother of three grown-and-flown children, the caretaker of a small homestead, and a small business owner, I suppose I have my share of concerns but I am not consumed with worry. This trait can annoy those that prefer to foster their worries. “You are lucky,” they say. “I must have a lot more to worry about than you do.” I doubt it but I do adhere to the principle that being worried is a choice, not a necessity.

Let's return to the idea that some foster their worries. True worriers tend their concerns like they are growing a garden full. If worry were a buffet, some go back for extra helpings at the worry bar. For some, worry is the main thing in the schedule and the main course on the dinner plate. Even when all energy is exhausted on “what if” concerns, worriers never grow closer to finding the much-desired hypothetical safe zone so they redouble their efforts to find more “what ifs” even as outdated ones fade away in the past.

Worry doesn’t live on one end of a continuum with safety perched tantalizingly on the other. The force of your virulent worry will never peddle you closer toward safety. Worry only gets bigger and it will certainly never repay you for your efforts. It will always consume more time and energy even as you increase your appetite for it daily. Worry takes you nowhere. There’s no reward in it. None. 

The obvious answer is this: stop worrying. Having lived for years with natural-born-worriers, I know you now ask, “how does one just stop it, especially when worry seems so unavoidable and so uncontrollable?” 

Humans are the only creatures that think ahead fully. We cultivate savings accounts, we take vitamin supplements, we reserve vacation time, we exercise when we’d rather sit, we get 20-year mortgages. We fervently plan or problem-solve for potential events many years in our future. Good problem-solving skills separate successful people--those with savings, health, a rewarding job, happy kids--from unsuccessful people burdened by debt, drama, doom. Neither group knew for certain what to expect in the years to come and luck is not always to blame.

Problem solving for the future is like a paved road going off into the distance. Most of us can look down this road to see roughly where it swoops over the horizon line or around a curve. Some have it easier because a mentor demonstrated how he or she has stayed on track during rough patches. Others, after a few halts, move down the road just the same. There will always be a point at which we can’t see the road in the distance. We’ll come to curves and hit major bumps (finances, health, relationships, disaster) so we recalibrate, we problem-solve, and we push on. The road ahead is visible but only poorly and only in patches. This is normal and unavoidable.

Worry is mismanaged problem solving for the future. Instead of working out a variety of strategies to move ahead down life’s unseen road—come what may—we build massive hypothetical worst-case scenarios. Instead of saving money for a rainy day, we focus on getting struck by lightning in that same rainstorm. We are going down the same road as before, but white-knuckled and terrified. We only have eyes for the hypothetical disaster (of our own design). Sure, some have it harder because a mentor or trusted source demonstrated the necessity to stay terrified about the road ahead or, the worse, your mentor failed to clue you in about life’s normal bumps and curves.

If worry is devouring your life, understand that it really is avoidable and controllable. First, look at your pile of worries. Listing them or discussing them with a non-worrier is a great idea (do bring them cookies). Sometimes just saying them reduces their scale and terror. Evaluate your worries. Some are worth a bit of energy right now –like how to get work done this week or how to help a sick family member--but most future "what if” worries are entirely unproductive. They are ready for the trash bin. “What if” worries are out of your control. There’s no productive course of action or reasonable solution for such uncertainties and hypotheticals because they do not exist now, and they will likely never exist in the future.

Stop equating feelings of uncertainty with foreboding and doom. Life, at least the kind that is worth living, is full of uncertainty. You can’t have it all planned and sorted as you smoothly round every blind curve. Life will never go this way. Accept uncertainty and put all your energy into things you can control like doing today’s work and taking care of today’s health and loved ones. There are certainly dips and curves ahead. You will never be in control of the road, only how you drive it. Apply all that misspent worry-energy on today’s troubles right now, small, or large. Come at life full tilt, learn how to do the tough stuff of the future by doing the manageable stuff today. You’ll find you have reduced your “what if” worry pile by half.  

“The art of life is to deal with problems as they arise, rather than destroy one’s spirit by worrying about them too far in advance.” Marcus Tullius Cicero