To Worry Or To Not Worry,That is the Question Elita Sohmer Clayman

A fine medical person, Dennis H. Myers said this to me “If you worry today about something that never took place, tomorrow you realize what a waste it was.” Some people worry about lots of things in advance and when it does not happen, you wonder, why did I put so much stock in it to worry so much?

Others are casual and they say they never worry about anything. Some may be telling the truth, others may be lying some.  I am the first kind, I worry a lot about things and when it does not materialize, than I wonder why did I worry so much? It does not mean you are always worrisome, it means you think a lot about things and maybe, because you are intellectually alert, you do think these things in advance. Maybe that helps you prepare if something were to happen. Maybe it is a sign of knowledge about events or procedures or health problems or financial problems. If you are the kind who puts your head in the sand, that is also not a good trait.

I know someone who lived to be ninety-five and she told her grandchild her thoughts on living so long were because she did not worry. Actually, I knew her and I know she did not care about lots of things and when she did care, she did worry. She did not admit to that worry, she bragged that her good longevity was due to her being carefree in her thoughts. When she did not care about something or someone, she did not worry; when she did care about them, I know she worried.

I read some thoughts on this and the author said that “human beings grow best with encouragement and love. Let every word you speak to yourself or others be filled with kindness.” That is true and you can see that with your children and grandchildren. You encourage them to excel, to be kind, to read well, to be nice to other children and mainly to love their parents, siblings, friends and grandparents. They grow up with these thoughts and see how the parents treat their parents with respect and kindness, then this is instilled in them and as they mature, they imitate the way they see their parents act.

If a parent smokes, the child gets the idea that smoking is acceptable. If the parents drink heavily, they think that is another thing that is okay.

I had a friend who when I visited her home for two hours to play with her, I would come home to my house and had heard terrible cuss words. Every word that came out of her mother was colored with a bad word, as we called them in those days of 1946 or so. I had never heard these words and knew they were not correct to be used especially around young kids. I became uncomfortable hearing these words. The way I solved it was I invited her to my house. There she heard no harsh words as she was used to, she only heard the sweetness and dearness of my own Mom who did not speak like her mother. She once said to me in her very wise years of about being twelve, “I like your mom, she is very soft and dear.” I knew what she meant, because she was comparing my mom’s speech to her mom’s lack of decent speech.

I have been to a competition dance many years ago when a judge saw a professional doing something he thought was not in the dance syllabus for that particular division of the dance, the teacher was performing with his student. The judge was very harsh and said in front of everyone watching this particular heat as they are called “Number twenty-nine (the men pros and amateurs are identified with a printed large number pinned to their dancing outfit) you are dancing incorrectly in your category, using steps not allowed in that degree of the dance you are signed up to do; therefore, kindly step out and do not continue to dance.” It was a horrifying comment for a dancing judge to say in front of everyone else who was viewing and or watching the dancers. He should have let number twenty-nine continue until the dance heat was finished, marked him out so he could not win the event and maybe later on call him aside and speak with him as one professional to another one. The dance student was embarrassed and walked off and the student felt very inferior. She did not dance any more that evening and as I heard, went home the next day and did not finish her other dancing heats even though she had paid in advance for doing so.

The judge used bad ‘judgment for a judge.’ This was not a court of law, where a judge can admonish a defendant for wrong behavior. This dancing judge should have worried a few moments before he said these words to a professional. Either the pro did not realize that the student he was dancing with should not be doing this advanced dance work in the category they were allowed to dance in; or he made a mistake because he had so many students to dance with in this competition and he forgot which one he was performing with that day.

There are all kinds of worry. The opposite is calm, reassure and relaxed. William Inge said “worry is interest paid on trouble before it becomes due.” I think there can be two kinds of worry. The bad kind is when you let it take over your life and you fear many things and some of them you need not fear. Then there is the good worry. The good one is when you are receptive to something that could happen, if the great thing does not happen, that you are concerned about. This way you are prepared that the outcome will not be what you may wish it to be and therefore, the knowledge in advance of something that could go wrong makes you able to cope with it, if it does happen. Perhaps, a psychologist would not agree with my assertions of good worry and bad worry.

I know of a young woman who did not get into the college of her first choice. She got accepted to the college which was her third choice. She also got accepted to the college of her second choice. So she went and agreed to go to the number two acceptance of her. After she had paid the down payment and the fees, she was notified that she was now asked to come to the first school and was now approved and given the green light. She had worried a bit because she really wanted the number one college. When she signed up for the number two college, she felt relieved and glad to be going there. When the call came that she was now able to go to her first choice school, she had already unworried herself and was content. She decided to not accept the number one because they had not wanted her in the first place and only came after her, when someone else probably rejected them. So she took her worries from the first non-acceptance and turned them into non worries of joy having the chance to go to number two school.

Funny thing is she excelled in the number two school and when she went on to medical school, she got accepted immediately from the number one school who had semi rejected her and then accepted her later on. She did not go there and went to her same school, but to the medical school now and so her eight years of schooling and finalizing being a medical doctor were all at her number two choice. Actually, her number two choice turned out quite fine; she met her husband there in the medical school and now they are practicing doctors in the same office, she a psychiatrist and he is a surgeon and they share the office, waiting rooms and assistants and bookkeeping employees. If she had accepted number one when they wanted her, she would not have met the husband and the rest is history.

So worrying can be beneficial sometimes and not as always harmful as thought. Maybe, people who think too much and who are leaning on high intellectual levels and are worriers; should perhaps lighten up a bit; but if they do worry, maybe it can lead to some good aspects of knowledge and endurance.

 So as Mr. Inge said that worry is interest paid on trouble before it is due, maybe we can take that ‘interest’ and bank it in an account and ‘save ‘our self from some complicated worries and know that they will not come true, and if they do, we will still be doing good things and still be happy, secure and hopefully not fill that bank account book with too many additions. I will try that I, since I am a worrier and try to make the bank statement be quite empty and let the worries fly away one at a time and in its place, have thoughts of the opposite of the word worry. I will substitute the words of peace, calm and reassured and not worry anymore about being worried.

So Dennis, I will not worry about things that may not take place; I will be happier tomorrow because I did not ‘waste’ my intelligent thoughts on the word worry. I will think about good thoughts and eliminate that word from my vocabulary. The only time I will now worry, is if I happen to start worrying about worrying.