The value of worry.
“Worry is like a rocking chair: it gives you something to do but never gets you anywhere” ~ Erma Bombeck
I appreciate having something to do, but rocking in a chair doesn’t really cut it for me (at least not yet). :) I’m also not trying to get anywhere. I simply want to dance passionately with the world while I still have the precious opportunity. And so I view the value of everything through a particular lens. I ask myself: Is it useful? Does it serve my desire to enjoy and improve both my experiences, and the lives of others? If so, then I bet on it. And if I can’t connect those dots, to whatever it is, then I regard it as useless (at best).
That’s how I feel about worry.
I recently spoke to a friend who confessed that he’s been routinely waking up at three in the morning, worrying about various things (we never discussed the actual things). I asked him if he considered those thoughts to be useful. He wasn’t quite sure what I meant, so I pressed him a bit:
“They’re your thoughts, right? So are they serving you? Are they helping you solve a particular problem? Are they making your life, and others, better?”
“Since there’s nothing more that I can do about it, and certainly not at 3 a.m., I suppose not.”
At the end of our call, he got it.
Worry is useless because it can’t help you improve your life or the lives of others. It’s not a productive activity, like planning, nor is it a source of inspiration and motivation. In fact, excessive worry is demotivating and causes you to become depressed and angry, and to withdraw from life. And despite what your identity validating mind may tell you, worry doesn’t demonstrate that you’re a caring person. If you worry less than someone else, does that mean that you care less? Seriously?
The complex systems thinker, Nora Bateson, was recently quoted as saying, “It’s a prerequisite of system change that you lose faith in the existing system. Once you lose faith, you stop looking for yourself inside it.” Your conditioned mind, which produces worry, is your existing system; one in which you have complete faith, because you believe that the system is useful and, more importantly, that it is… you.
But your thoughts are not you. They’re simply a tool. So change your faulty system and use that powerful tool, consciously and deliberately, to prepare, to solve problems, to create, and to imagine a better world. And when you are not using that tool, put it away and experience the amazing world around you, including other human beings, through awareness, play, meals, music, romance, love.
Make no mistake: Worry is both symptomatic and revealing of one’s system of thinking, and of one’s environment. It reveals a lack of trust in yourself, in your fellow human beings, and in the mysterious and powerful Universe. Let’s stop looking for ourselves inside the existing, defective system. Let’s trust each other and let’s trust life.
It’s a bet I’m willing to make, because it’s useful.
Random information for September
* China will no longer allow kids to play online video games on weekdays. The new regulations limit minors to 3 hours of gaming a week, and sent Chinese video game stocks tumbling.
* Mountain Dew painted 100 skateboards using Tony Hawk’s blood (of course they did).
* Harvard University’s new chief chaplain is an atheist (of course he is).
* IKEA is a utility now (of course it is). The furniture giant will sell wind- and solar-powered energy directly to Swedish homes starting this month.
* Rihanna is a billionaire (you get the idea). The artist and fashion mogul is now worth $1.7 billion, making her the highest-paid female musician in the world.
* Netflix tapped Paris Hilton for a cooking show. The only caveat is Paris Hilton doesn’t know how to cook.
* Researchers added a human protein to plants. It can increase food crop yields by as much as 50%.
* Palantir recently bought $50.7 million in gold bars. The tech company said it’s preparing for a “black swan event.”
* Amazon is reportedly building its own department stores. The company wants to control all retail and all consumer spending, and it can afford to experiment.
* Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis is the longest English word.
* Scammers are extorting authors on Goodreads. If writers don’t agree to pay for good reviews, their books are overwhelmed with bad ones (please don’t get any ideas).
* Kanye West is legally changing his name. The American musician has petitioned to become just “YE.”
* There’s too much weed in Canada. Legalizing cannabis hasn’t made it as sellable as growers had hoped.
* Aspirin could help treat certain breast cancers. Researchers are testing whether the painkiller makes tumors more susceptible to immunotherapy drugs.
* A supercomputer calculated pi to the 62.8 trillionth digit. It only took 108 days and 9 hours.
* Quartz crystals are the secret to Stonehenge’s longevity. They make the stones stronger and less susceptible to erosion from the elements.
* Leaded gasoline is finally banned everywhere on Earth. It only took half a century.
* A brain-like mass grown from stem cells developed light-sensitive optic cups. Researchers say the blob wasn’t conscious.
* Time crystals have been realized, physicists claim. It’s a phase of matter that cycles forever between states without consuming energy, and researchers at Google and Stanford say they’ve created it inside a quantum computer.
* Cities make us happy. New research found lower rates of depression in people who live in large urban areas.
* A six-foot giraffe was born in a Massachusetts zoo. That’s an unusually huge baby, even for giraffes.
* IKEA made a candle that smells like meatballs.
* More than 80 cultures have a whistled version of their language. Musical communication is common in wooded and mountainous areas because the sound travels farther than shouting.
* A goose was photographed flying upside down. The Bean goose was captured doing something called whiffling, which one expert says may just be the bird showing off.
Take a look
Say it with sheep. A farmer who was unable to attend his aunt’s funeral herded his flock to honor her.
Think about this
“That’s the whole secret: to do things that excite you.”~ Ray Bradbury
“Nothing is a greater impediment to being on good terms with others than being ill at ease with yourself.” ~ Honoré de Balzac
“I think of a hero as someone who understands the degree of responsibility that comes with his freedom.” ~ Bob Dylan
And remember
I value your feedback (even though I rarely hear from you). ;) Please reach out to me with any questions or comments or simply to say hi: hello@tomasacker.com (or use the contact form).
Until next time, be real (where it counts)!
Tom
P.S. I’m committed to getting the ideas in Your Brain on Story into the world, in the hope that it can help inspire others. Please consider forwarding it to anyone who may benefit from it.
Here’s a recent podcast about the book: Click here