You know how Facebook asks you, “What’s on your mind, fill-in-your-name-here?” Have you ever just wanted to answer truthfully about the long list of worries and stressors that are currently infiltrating every ounce of free space in your mind right at that very moment?
For example, when I first put fingers to keyboard on this article back in October, here’s the litany of things I was currently stressing about:
I was thinking about how I was going to pay for all of my medical bills that I’ve neglected for the past month because money is super tight.
I was wondering if I did anything to upset my coworker or was I just reading into her actions a little too much.
I was trying to figure out how much Christmas would cost and how we’d be able to afford to fly across the county to go home.
I was thinking about what I was going to do at work on Monday (even though it was Saturday).
I was trying to figure out what I’m going to do when my employment contract is up (even though that’s in April).
And I was thinking about how the heck I’m going to build an online brand when I don’t have a clue what I’m doing.
These worries felt like I'm staring off a mountain top trying to count the trees. Impossible.
Now here's the irony. It is April, my medical bills are all paid off, I've no idea what coworker I was talking about, my husband were able to afford to fly home for New Year's and we had the best time, clearly that Monday in October was not a pivotal day in my career (good or bad) because once again I don't remember it, I was able to sign a 1-year extension on my contract, and here I am building a brand and blog one day at a time.
So really.... the jokes on me. I wasted a perfectly good October morning worrying about things that within 2-5 months were completely irrelevant.
I’ve often been called a worrywart. My retort was always that I like to be prepared. Worrying about the future felt like it was helping me prepare for all the worst case scenarios so that there would be no surprises. Anything that came up, I was prepared to handle. I could handle it because I’d imagined so much worse.
I really like this quote by Dan Zadra, an author, book mentor, and strategic communications and creativity consultant.
“Worry is the misuse of imagination.” - Dan Zadra
And because of my faith, I like to amend this a little and say, “Worry is the misuse of our God-given imagination.”
Our imagination is powerful. Our ability to imagine the future, imagine something that doesn’t exist, imagine entirely different worlds, or imagine what it’s like to be someone else is an incredible gift that God only gave us humans. Cats don’t sit around and wonder what it’d be like to be a dog. Plants don’t imagine being on another planet. Our imagination is one of the things that makes us human. It helps us find solutions and solve problems.
God didn’t intend for our imaginations to be used to create problems. So what do you think it says about us that we often turn our imagination to the negative, dark, pessimistic and often unrealistic potential outcomes of situations?
It’s hard for me to talk about worry without incorporating my faith, but whatever your faith is, if you believe in some higher power or fate or destiny, why do you let worry dictate how you feel about the future? Bad things are going to happen, that’s life. However, don’t let those bad future possibilities take up any room in your present life.
We all know the song, Hakkuna Matata, from The Lion King and the story of Simba that goes with it. Hakkuna Matata means no worries. Simba runs away from his responsibility and his past in pursuit of a carefree existence. He is a terrible example of what it means to live a worry-free life because he tried to achieve that by neglecting everything and everyone.
We cannot do that. We cannot skirt our responsibilities in the name of ‘no worries.’ We can’t just stand on the ocean shores of our lives and let the hurricanes come without shelter or provisions because we decided not to worry about the necessities for survival.
Unlike my original belief in worry, worry is not the same thing as planning. Worry is fixating on something beyond our control. Because here’s the deal: if a solution is within your control, then you would be fixing it right now instead are just worrying about it. Chances are, if you are fixing it or at least attempting to, then it’s not really something you’re worried about.
There’s a lot of scary, hurtful things out there in the world that can cause us to worry. Other people's opinions, natural disasters, family members, our health, finances, not living up to our potential, and oh yes, that pesky little COVID-19 crisis we're all living through.
The biggest difference between things we should and should not worry about is control. There are always going to be things in your control and things out of your control. What you need to do is take inventory, do some self-reflection, and figure out which category the thing you’re worried about fits.
Here’s where I put my current top stressors:
But as with all things in life, there’s always a bit of gray area where you need to spend a little more time breaking down your situation a little bit more.
For example, let’s talk about money real briefly.
I’m pretty sure everyone has worried about money at some point or another. This is a tricky one because everyone’s financial situations are different. I can’t pretend to know what your situation is like. However, I can tell you that no matter how much money you have, you will always want more.
I remember watching the news one morning and there was a survey that found that everyone, regardless of how much they made, always said they needed at least $10,000 more to be comfortable. It didn’t matter if they made $35,000 or $100,000, they all needed more.
The solution to financial problems isn’t just more money. With more money comes more problems. Just ask a lottery winner. Lottery winners are more likely to declare bankruptcy within three to five years than the average American. More money doesn’t solve problems. Financial responsibility solves problems. However, that’s a topic for another time.
So when it comes to putting finances into a category as to whether it is in our control or out of our control, you have to break your finances down in smaller more manageable chunks.
Put these facts into categories of “in control” and “out of control:”
How much money I make.
How much I owe in bills/loans.
How much I spend on groceries/going out to eat.
How much I spend shopping.
How much I put into savings.
How much I tithe.
How much I put towards a new _____.
How many vacations I take this year.
What kind of brand-name products I buy versus cheaper, off-brand products.
What I buy when I go out with friends on a Friday night.
Here’s how I categorized these areas:
Do you see how there are more things in the “in control” column? Those are the areas where we deserve to put our attention and energy. Most of us work a standard 40-hour-a-week job where our income doesn’t fluctuate too much. So instead of thinking about how we don’t make enough money (out of our control), we should look at how we spend our money (in our control).
You can break down any of the other categories we talked about the same way: Other people's opinions, natural disasters, family members, our health, finances, not living up to our potential, etc. Just ask yourself, what about each of these things is in your control and what is out of your control.
Going to the gym to be healthy? In your control.
Catching COVID19? Out of your control.
Being kind to your coworker even though they get under your skin? In your control.
How much said coworker likes working with you? Out of your control.
Hurricane-proofing your house for a storm? In your control.
How badly damaged your house might be in the storm? Out of your control.
See how the things that are within our control are active and the things that are out of our control are passive? That’s an easy way to determine where to focus your energy.
Now, I don’t pretend to know exactly what you or your family is going through. And before I continue, I do want to make sure I say this. It’s okay to feel worried about paying your bills after being unemployed for three months or about a loved one being sick and on her deathbed. Worry won’t solve any of those problems, but it is a natural emotion that should be acknowledged, dealt with, and moved past. For those of us on the outside looking in on someone who is worried, they deserve our patience and our encouragement in those really, really difficult seasons of life.
However, there’s a difference between being worried about losing your house in a hurricane and being worried about passing Calculus. If you’re worried about passing a class, stop worrying and start studying. If you’re worried about oversleeping your alarm, set six back ups on the other side of the room. If you’re worried about being overlooked for a promotion, go talk to your boss. If you’re worried about how your friend feels after the two of you had an argument, talk to her about it.
You cannot run away from your problems like Simba found out after months of aimless wandering. You have to face them. And chances are, when you face them, you’ll wonder what it is you were ever worried about in the first place. There’s this great Huffington Post article that takes a survey from the book, “The Worry Cure” by Robert L. Leahy and says:
“85% of what subjects worried about never happened, and with the 15 percent that did happen, 79% of subjects discovered either they could handle the difficulty better than expected, or the difficulty taught them a lesson worth learning. This means that 97% of what you worry over is not much more than a fearful mind punishing you with exaggerations and misperceptions.”
I love that. "A fearful mind punishing you with exaggerations and misperceptions. "
If you write down 100 things that you’re worried about and scratch off 97 of them, how does that change the way you look at your life? If we spent less time worrying, how much more time and energy would we have to actually fix the problem?
And you know who fixes problems? Warriors.
You don’t picture a warrior sitting in bed, staring at his sword, and imagining all the ways he could die that day. No, a warrior takes action. You see her leading the charge in the battle of good versus evil. You imagine she’s coming face to face with her enemy and determination is lighting a fire in her eyes. Nothing stands in the way of these warriors for long. Nothing defeats these warriors, especially not worry.
And unlike are imaginative warriors, most of the things facing us are not life and death. Most of the things we worry about are the 97% of things that don’t need us to worry about them. When we worry, we take a backseat to our lives. We give up the steering wheel and tell the car to drive itself because we don’t want to worry about hitting the other cars on the road. Don’t you realize how ridiculous worry is? We need to take back the steering wheel and tell the car where we want to go and let what happens happen.
Worrying is passive. Being a warrior requires action. Worrying stops us. Being a warrior propels us. Worrying silences us. Being a warrior finds our voice.
Will you be a worrier or a warrior today?
Comments