Why Worry?

I worry a lot.

I worry about what I'll do after I leave Japan, I worry that I'll never find a good stable job, I worry that the world will collapse in fiery horror tomorrow--or maybe the next day.

"Worry is like paying interest in advance on a debt you may never owe." - Anon/The Internet


I also worry about very small things, like when people will show up to the party I'm throwing.  I definitely take it to extremes.  However, I'm unwilling to say categorically that worry is an unproductive emotion.  I think it can be a spark or something you wallow in.


So what do you do with that spark?  The only two things, in my experience, that make worry go away or lessen are 1) ignoring or forgetting the problem and 2) doing something to better equip yourself to meet the possible impact of the worried-about event.

Is one option better than the other?  Probably not.  Like most things, a balance of the two is required to get you anywhere with strength.  (Absolutely zero I'm saying is new, by the way--if you'd like to distill this down to "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference" you can probably skip this and wait for the next post...)

Let's work with the broad worry that is the spark behind this blog and this time in my life.  I worry that the markets will crash, oil prices will skyrocket, food will become scarce, and everything I've ever taken for granted in my life will disappear.  Episodes of "30 Rock" only allay these fears 20 minutes at a time, so that's just a stopgap.

The key is to see even that grim future as an opportunity, not a shattering as much as a shifting.  We live incredibly protected, rich lives in the developed world, but we fear so much.  I see everywhere in my generation that people are turning off when they are presented with bad news because they are simply sick of being told what to fear and worry about.

We have more safety and comfort than 99% of the humans who have walked the earth, so what are we afraid of?  Is it not possible that at a certain level of protection and luxury our deeper centers of confidence and strength weaken and tremble with disuse?
 
These challenges in our world deserve to be met, charged, not merely reacted to.  And all these wonderful bionic/technological tools give us incredible power to shape the world around us, for better or worse--but how often do they instead become our worlds?