What is worth worrying about? Is it worth worrying about the weather, travel arrangements, the future, our health, our family, our weight, our age, traffic, our popularity, our success, our job, our neighbors, our earnings? Is it worth worrying if we got the best deal on what we just bought even though we just bought it? Is it worth worrying that we made the wrong decision to take a job in a different state after we’ve already made the move? We worry about where to eat out for dinner, what to wear to dinner, what to choose for dinner, how much to tip after we’ve eaten dinner. It goes on and on…and on.
What does worrying do for us? Oprah Winfrey was recently asked what her biggest regret was and she said that her biggest regret was “time wasted on things that don’t matter”.
Where’s the reward in worry? What do we actually get? When do we actually receive it? How long does it take? If you’re someone that worries a lot, then maybe you worry from one thing to the next, or you multi-worry. There’s time taken to consider our best choices and there’s the spirit breaking amount of time worrying about making the “right decision”. After much thought, consideration, and more than a smidgen of worry we choose the elegant venue where we want to celebrate our special occasion and it turns out great. We wonder “what was I worrying about”? Then there’s another side. There’s another side to almost everything. 🙂 We can’t necessarily (despite our good diet and exercise) predict what we might hear at our next doctor’s visit. We take our body spanking with “good health” to our yearly check-up and it checks out not so healthy. Was it worth worrying about beforehand? You did all you could do to be healthy, and now you will do what you need to do to change what isn’t as healthy as it needs to be. How many of us expend vats of vitality worrying about things that we actually have no power over? Why worry until things happen? We all do worry…it’s the distracting derailing amount that I’m talking about. I worry when I’m due for my yearly MRI at Mass General. I’ve been going for this check-up for many years now and I still get worried. I’ve got it down that I don’t start worrying until that morning. I worry every now and then about my aging parents, but unless their health calls for alarm, I try and not worry too much. There will be time for that. What if we were to take the same amount of emotional energy that we distribute to this side of wondering about “what could or should have been” (this worry energy), and used it for what we’re actually engaged in trying to accomplish? Imagine the powerful difference that could make in our lives? Go with your inner feelings, make the best decisions you can make, and move forward. Accept that what decision you made at the time was the very best it could be at that moment in time. Live with that, and keep on keepin’ on! While you’re worrying about making the PERFECT DECISIONS, you may very well be missing some of the BEST OPPORTUNITIES because much of your focus and energy is on what?
Love your thoughts.