Be Worry Free!

Worry- the definitions itself says quite a lot:

Verb -To torment oneself with or suffer from disturbing thoughts
        -Give way to anxiety or unease; allow one's mind to dwell on difficulty or troubles
Noun -A cause of uneasiness or anxiety; trouble.
         -A State of anxiety and uncertainty over actual or potential problems

That's right, we torment ourselves with disturbing thoughts. We lead the way to our own negativity, uneasiness, and anxiety. We continue to dwell on our "troubles"- allowing ourselves to suffer. We also let the uncertainty of events, emotions, and thoughts overwhelm us- regardless of the problems being actual or potential.

"If I had to live my life over, I would perhaps have more actual troubles but I'd have fewer imaginary ones." - Don Herold

Worrying is something we all tend to do far too often. Sometimes, worrying can even lead to positive results. In most cases however, we end up investing negative emotions and thoughts into circumstances and events, and it eventually leads to negative outcomes.

We hope to change and control our future, but our negative thinking and emotions can too often cloud our judgement and blind us- leading to undesired outcomes. The outcome of these events then conditions us to be even more negative, and it seems to become a repetitive cycle. Those who break the cycle are those who break their worries. But naturally, most of us require a lot of time and experience to figure this out- most of us have to learn it the hard way.

Fortunately, our world is filled with wisdom provided by those who have amassed and solved worries in their time. These teachers have built systems that are now time-tested techniques. They shared them for a reason- and we ought to look at some of these seemingly simple, yet amazing techniques.

The techniques below were taken from Dale Carnegie’s “How to Stop Worrying and Start Living.”

Willis Carrier, the man had who invented the modern day air conditioning and the Carriers Corporation, used an anti-stress technique for decades:

“Step 1- What is the worst that could happen? Analyze the situations without fear and with all honesty. Figure out what was the worst that could happen as a result of failure.”

“Step 2- Prepare to accept it if you have to: I picture the worst-case-scenario, and then I reconcile with myself to accept it as if necessary. After discovering the worst that could happen and reconciling with myself to accept it, an extremely important thing happened: I immediately relaxed and felt a sense of peace that I hadn’t experienced in days.”

“Step 3- Calmly proceed to improve on the worst. From that time on, I calmly devote my time and energy to trying to improve upon the worst which I already accepted mentally. When we worry, our minds jump here and there and everywhere, and we lose all power of decision. However, when we force ourselves to face the worst and accept it mentally, we then eliminate all these vague imaginings and put ourselves in a position in which we are able to concentrate on our problem.

This all relates back to the concept of acceptance, and a famous Chinese philosopher had expressed it in his writing: True peace of mind comes from accepting the worst.”

Now this technique will probably bring you some peace of mind, for others, it might give them a complete peace of mind. But more often than not, we will need a bit more to solve our complex and multi-facet problems.

"Aristotle taught 3 basic steps of problem analysis:

1. Get the facts. 2. Analyze the facts 3. Arrive at the decision – and then act on that decision"

Even the most intelligent amongst us cannot solve most problems intelligently without first collecting facts. Without facts- we only have assumptions- and we will be confused by these assumptions.

“Confusion is the chief cause of worry. Half the worries in the world is caused by people trying to make decisions before they have sufficient knowledge on which to base a decision. For example, if I have a problem which has to be faced next Tuesday, I refuse to even try to make a decision about it until next Tuesday arrives. In the meantime, I concentrate on getting all the facts that bear on the problem. I don’t worry, I don’t agonize over my problem. I don’t lose any sleep. I simply concentrate on getting the facts. And by the time Tuesday rolls around, if I’ve got all the facts the problem usually solves itself!” – Herbert E. Hawkes

For me, instead of collecting facts in an objective manner, I know there were many times in the past that I didn’t even bothered with the facts at all. I acted based on assumptions, leading me to act on more assumptions, which then results horrible decisions. We also have a bias when collecting “facts”- which is collecting only the information that favours our wishful thinking – leading us to justify an ill-conceived solution.

We love collecting information that assures us of our desires, but are angered by those that are not. This is certainly not collecting facts in an objective manner. Emotions and anxiety can often overpower our intelligence... to prevent this, we ought to separate our emotions from our thinking.

“Troubles are a lot like people – they grow bigger if you nurse them.”

To do this- pretend that you are collecting the facts for someone other than yourself. This way, you can then learn to take a cold outside view of the situation, thereby eliminating emotions. To go further, you can act as a devil’s advocate, or a lawyer who is ready to argue for both sides. A lawyer knows how to argue the facts against himself, the facts that are against their wishes and desires- the facts that most of us choose not to face.

Often times, we cannot always collect all the relevant facts. But if even brilliant Supreme Court judges do not make a decision without first collect the facts they need, then we ought to solve problems in the same manner as well.  

“Worry is interest paid on troubles before it comes due. – William Ralph Inge

To analyze and interpret the problem, an effective method is to write down the facts on a piece of paper. Writing is a great way to collect our thoughts and clarify our thinking- our thoughts tend to make more sense after being written.

"To do this, simply follow these four steps: 1. Write down precisely what you are worrying about 2. Write down what you can do about it 3. Decide what to do 4. Start to carry out that decision."

Good luck everyone! Always remember that today is the tomorrow we worried about yesterday.

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