Why Worry

My mom was a worrier. She suffered from anxiety, depression. Even was temporarily hospitalized. She passed that on to her four children. We all dealt with it in our own ways.

If I try, I can remember lying in bed before sleep worrying about tomorrow and next week and next month.

I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.

Mark Twain

I soon discovered a truth that Viktor Frankl had uncovered. We humans have the power of choice. We can choose what to think about. While still in my 20s, I discovered the antidote. When thoughts began to dwell on what could go wrong, I would intentionally direct my thoughts to something pleasurable. It works. Between that and a lifetime of meditation, I have almost cut worry and anxiety from my life.

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

Jesus of Nazareth

Jesus taught that we can zoom out on our focus.

“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendorwas dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Jesus of Nazareth

Jesus gives similar advice. Focus our attention on the kingdom of God. That is more profitable than focus on what can go wrong.

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