zenscription

Over at the Sniff What I'm Stepping In blog, Amy attended a seminar that boasted statistics about worry:

* Only 1 out of every 7 things you worry about will actually happen.
* Of that number that do occur, only 1 out of every 5 will have intolerable consequences.

So, as you feel worry coming on, give it a sequential number like #1 for the first worry, #2 for the second, etc...

Only when you hit #35 should you give it any measure of your concern.

But to be serious for a second, even using these statistics, worrying is clearly not a good predictor of bad things happening, and so it's not worth giving much time to it. It's a huge waste of our minds. Humans are known as the 'poor weather animals,' meaning that we tend to do best under bad conditions. It's under duress and hardship that our ability to adapt (especially with the mind) starts to shine. Interestingly, it's when we're busy adapting by applying solutions and trying answers that we worry less. It's when we have a modicum of relatively stress-free time that we begin worrying about what might happen.

Besides, we don't seem to become more prepared by worrying about something, only less surprised that it happens. It doesn't lessen the trauma or the emotional pain. Life will go on regardless of whether we predicted it or not. Whether we worry about the possibility or not.

To me the point is would i have been better off by spending the entire cruise of the Titanic hugging the lifeboats? I think not. At least that's not the kind of life i want to lead. Better to try and live fully and embrace life than cling to fears about what could happen. And what if i chose to hug the side of the Titanic that began listing, where the lifeboats couldn't be lowered? I would have not only wasted the entire cruise on an amazing ship, but i still would have hit the drink and still been among those listed as missing at sea.

Worry is mostly a waste. Let it go, Luke. Better to become more efficient with my mind at learning to live, i say.