Worry

Today I start a piece on a favorite topic of mine: Worry. I will do it in several parts so please indulge me as I put it to you over a number of days. He sort of looks like me, well when I had hair. 

How does worry stay alive?  What gives it the breath of life?  Or in the case of worry how does it steal our breath and make it short?  Which leads me to the idea that worry cannot exist for long when we take long deep breaths and let them out every so slowly.  Worry requires that we shallow breathe so that it makes our heart work harder and beat faster.  It likes us to have our sweat glands working overtime.  

Worry is not of nature it is not even of the natural laws of the universe.  It exists solely as a parasite would on the energy that we provide it with.  Why do we need worry is another question that comes to mind.  We need it because…. oh yes it shows us that we care about someone or some thing.  However, I think we think it shows that we care about someone but it is so misdirected because worry means we lack the faith in that person.  It also says that without our worry they won’t be able to take care of it themselves.  

What about when we worry about ourselves?  Like we won’t have enough money to pay the rent or the mortgage, to pay the bills. Does worry ever help pay the bills?  Of course the answer is no and in fact I don’t think worry even pays a living wage even in Thailand.  It is a cost.  Worry is a very high priced expense item masquerading as a do gooder that provides us with some service.  What is that service?  It’s not even a good early warning system as it only takes cues from its first cousin fear.