When It Doesn't Help To Worry

We’ve all been there, worrying about something that might happen. It stirs up anxiety, stress, and nervousness that consumes our personal experience.

Like all emotions, worrying is trying to do something for us. It’s making us feel a certain way in an attempt to influence our behavior. Ultimately worry is a survival instinct that forecasts what might happen so that we’re more prepared to respond if it does happen. 

But in today’s society, there are so many causes for worry and the system is very sensitive and often activated unnecessarily.

There’s an iconic quote by Randy Armstrong that goes “Worrying does not take away tomorrow’s troubles, it takes away today’s peace.” I find it to be true.

In most situations, does worrying serve us? Is it helpful to wait impatiently for a loved one to tell us they made it home safely? Is it fair to worry about not having enough money to check out at a grocery store?

My answer to this is - When worrying brings your awareness to something and influences you to take a new action, then yes. Other than that, then no.

Here’s a scenario I experienced last week that demonstrates this. I was driving on the freeway and passed a sign that said “33 miles to the next gas station.” I checked my tank and saw I had two bars, and kept driving. Almost immediately upon passing it my gas went down to 1 bar, and soon thereafter my “low on gas” notification popped up.

This caused me to worry. What if we run out of gas? What if we get stranded? The worst case scenarios went rolling through my mind.

But then I thought about it more objectively - With this information, what decision did I want to make? I could try to turn around and get gas or continue on for 33 miles. Using my understanding of my car’s gas fuel efficiency, and past experience on how far I could go with that amount of gas, I chose to keep moving forward. I made a decision that gave me calmness and offset the worry.

That’s not to say that I didn’t worry at all, I continued to check my fuel gauge to see how I was doing. If new compelling information presented itself I would consider making a new decision, but without issue I made it the 33 miles to fuel up.

I share that story because we’re presented with situations every day that cause us to worry.  But with a new perspective and frame of mind, it doesn’t need to hijack our quality of life and we can more confidently navigate forward.