The Work of Worry
I admit, I’m a worrier. Always have been – when I was a teenager, I used to lay awake nights worrying about… well, whatever teenagers worry about. In college, I used to worry about classes, girls, money – and eventually about the fact that I was laying up nights worrying instead of sleeping. Today, I worry about… well, I worry about the same things, I guess, except now I’m on the other side of the classroom lectern.
Here’s the thing I’ve learned, though: it takes about as much work to do or fix the thing we’re worried about as it does to worry about it. Often, it actually takes even less. Consider this admittedly extreme example drawn from Neil Fiore’s Overcoming Procrastination (originally published as The Now Habit):
Carolyn had procrastinated for months over… [buying] her mother some Chinese cooking utensils. A number of small problems would get in her way, making the task seem complicated and hard to deal with – it seemed like a long trip, she didn’t know where to get off the train, it would be embarrassing having to ask strangers for directions, she wasn’t sure of the exact place in Chinatown to shop. One rainy day… she decided to just get on the train and ask someone for her stop and trust that she would find her way. Everything unfolded magically from one step to the next. Upon reaching her destination she checked her watch and discovered that it had taken her nine and one-half minutes. “Nine and a half minutes!” she said to herself. “I’ve been procrastinating for months over something that took me nine and a half minutes!” (Pg. 111-12)
Think of how much work Carolyn invested into avoiding those 9 ½ minutes of activity. How many times she must have remembered (and probably at the most ridiculous times, when it could only distract her from other tasks) that she’d promised her mother to get her those kitchen utensils, how much guilt she must have felt on not delivering on that promise, how many excuses she had to come up with to avoid completing this simple project, how many times she must have had to apologize to her mother for not getting to it yet (and how many new promises to “get to it soon” she must have made, each adding another layer of guilt and worry to her routine) – all over a task that required next to no effort at all.
Now, multiply that times a lifetime of worry. That’s some serious work we’re doing. Work we’re wasting, actually, since it produces nothing except greater anxiety, guilt, and negative feelings about ourselves. And think of how many different ways we create this negative, unproductive work for ourselves.
- Procrastination: Carolyn’s is a classic case of procrastination, investing our energy in anxious fretting instead of in our ostensibly chosen work. Procrastination has a lot of negative qualities, but here, the important thing is that when we procrastinate work that we’d be a lot better off finishing, we actually create more work for ourselves in the form of worry. The guilt, the self-recriminations, the excuses – these are all work. Stupid, unproductive, useless work.
- Disorganization: One of the things that struck me most when I interviewed Regina Leeds, author of One Year to an Organized Life, was her insistence that even the worst disorganization is a system – it takes a lot of work and effort to maintain a chaotic life. Part of that effort is just finding everything, but part of it is the worry and fear we feel that we won’t be able to find what we need, that something important will get lost, that others will judge us harshly, that we won’t work quickly or efficiently enough, and do on. Though the start-up costs of a more efficient system can be somewhat steep, the long-term gain in productive non-worrying generally outweighs by far the negative feelings we pay for the privilege of disorganization.
- Over-organization: By the same token, after a certain point our organization system can become its own source of anxiety, as we spend more time and effort worrying about where things go or about putting things in the wrong place that we stop getting done the things that the organization system was ostensibly supposed to make possible.
- Unattainable goals: This is a tough one: goals that we’ve set for ourselves that either always were or that we ultimately realize are beyond our ability to achieve. Nothing hangs on us like an unfinished project, and to save ourselves from the stigma and shame of failure, we are often hesitant to let go of tasks we simply cannot complete. This is why it’s important to set attainable goals, and to accept failure and learn from it when we can – the alternative is a lifetime of regret and worry.
I’m sure there are other situations where we work harder at worrying than at the thing we’re worrying about. How about relationships?
Here’s a story: I went to a movie with a woman I really liked, and we got popcorn. “Do you want butter on that?” asked the teenage popcornière behind the counter. I don’t like butter on my popcorn, but ever the gentleman, I turned to my date and asked her if she wanted any. She doesn’t like it either, but ever the lady, she said, “well, light butter is ok.”
“OK, ” I said, turning back to the young popcorn chef.
“Only if you want butter,” she said, stopping me before I could order butter. After an awkward back and forth, it emerged that neither of us likes butter on our popcorn, but both of us were willing to make the sacrifice out of worry of offending the other. Fortunately in this case, we straightened it out before we both had to suffer a greasy bag of disgusting oiled popcorn. But how often do couples, whether on an early date or after decades of marriage, undermine their relationships by worrying instead of acting? And how much better off might they be without all the wasted work of worry?
It’s something to consider. And what about you? What worry do you work hardest at? Let us know in the comments.
WRITER'S BIOGRAPHY
Dustin Wax
Dustin M. Wax is a freelance writer and project manager at Stepcase Lifehack. He can be reached though his freelancing site at DustinWax.comDon't Be Stupid: A Guide to Learning, Studying, and Succeeding at College.
Follow him on Twitter: @dwax.
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Comments
furniture says on October 5th, 2009 at 12:54 pm
I too was having same problem during my college time and I have wasted many nights without sleep.
David says on October 5th, 2009 at 2:05 pm
I’ve basically figured out that most of the things I worry about solve themselves, or are not even important to me anymore by the time I really need to do them.
Robert Plumer says on October 5th, 2009 at 2:16 pm
A very timely article as I just started reading Dale Carnegie’s “How to stop worrying and start living”. Thanks for posting this article.
Nea | Self Improvement Saga says on October 5th, 2009 at 3:17 pm
Wonderful article. I was once a serious worrier. I think when you’re a perfectionist, worrying comes with the territory. As I learned to give up perfectionism, I stopped obsessing about things so much.
These days, if I find myself leaning towards that old pattern of worrying, I simply ask myself if the problem is something that I can change. If it is, then I decide if I want to change it or not. If I cannot change the situation or I don’t have intentions of changing it, then I let it go. Worrying is such an unnecessary way to waste away your life. Like you said, it is work. It is a complete waste of time because it always hinders and never helps.
Adrian says on October 5th, 2009 at 3:31 pm
Great article! I think you’ve really nailed it.
You can never totally give up worrying, though, you’ll always worry that you are not worrying enough ..
Kare Anderson says on October 5th, 2009 at 7:30 pm
Yes we women worry more than men and sometimes about the wrong things because sometimes our worry can protect us as I wrote in
When Worry is Worthless, When Fear is a Friend
http://sayitbetter.typepad.com.....riend.html
Meryl K Evans says on October 5th, 2009 at 7:32 pm
I worry about how long should I sit on an article, re-edit it and turn it in. I read Carnegie’s Worry book, too… but I worry anyway even though stats show that a high percentage of things we worry about never happen.
Bursa Haber says on October 6th, 2009 at 5:54 am
A very timely article as I just started reading Dale Carnegie’s “How to stop worrying and start living”. Thanks for posting this article.
Patrice says on October 6th, 2009 at 8:42 am
Great article. Let’s live life to the fullest as worries may cause a lot of negativity on our lives. Be happy.
Tristan Lee says on October 6th, 2009 at 9:31 am
I enjoyed reading this post. That story… how she waited months to doing something that took her 9 and a half minutes was crazy.
I think a lot of us worry about social anxiety, such as going up to a stranger and talking about absolutely nothing.
Before I met my current girlfriend, I had to get about 17 e-mails and face rejection or “dull, plan dates that went nowhere.”
Before doing this, I was constantly worrying about approaching someone in public (whether it was on a bus or someone on the sidewalk). The worry part would take me 40 minutes while the approaching, talking, and getting e-mail part would take me 4 minutes.
I’m glad I went through it though, as I learned that worry is all in the head. Nothing is actually happening to you in the moment.
Aly B - DiscoMaulvi says on October 6th, 2009 at 10:37 am
It is insane how much we worry about routine matters. I guess us folks who are religious are luckier, if we can grasp the concept that God will take care of you. All you need I guess is a leap of faith.
“And whoever places his trust in God, Sufficient is He for him, for God will surely accomplish His Purpose: For verily, God has appointed for all things a due proportion” (Qur’an 65:3) http://www.geocities.com/masad02/065.html
Now that your mind is cleared from all that worrying…. you can finally start doing something productive! :)
Thanx for a great article Dustin.
-Aly
http://discomaulvi.wordpress.com/
http://www.twitter.com/DiscoMaulvi
sherry says on October 6th, 2009 at 1:27 pm
This was a great article and I wish I could give it to some of my friends and make them absorb it. I’m not exactly ‘don’t worry, be happy’ but geez, the way some people worry about things that may never happen makes me crazy!
Vadim says on October 6th, 2009 at 3:54 pm
Good article, thanks for that!
The thing I’m worreing a lot about is that I’m 20 years old and never ever had a girlfriend. But the real thing is that I’m afraid of talking to girls that I like. And that makes me worry about my social skills, upbringing, psycologies problems (most of them of cource imaginary), and so on, and so on, and on…
But! This worry is the thing that induces me to change myself. I’m trying to improve my social skills. I’m really whant to become a talker to strangers (of cource by stranger I mean pretty girl :) ), and though there is still problems I faced to (it’s about fear now – I still cannot start a conversation), worry is the only force to pull me out of my imaginary walls.
So I think that you talk about another type of worry – one that keeps you stuck in this walls, that holds you too tightly, suffocate you. And what would be really interesting is to read about how to overcome this anxiety. One of the methods I use is described above by Nea – if you can’t change something it’s no use to worry about. But one may need some time to use this approach in real life, and it’s only about things that you cannot change. And, you know, sometimes words: “just do it”, are not enough to do it)))
to Tristan Lee:
You know, as for me the thing why I can’t talk to strangers is’t worry (as you descrbed in your case) – it’s fear. And when I tried to analyse this fear I understood that it was fear of nothing. It wasn’t fear of rejection or something else. It’s more like fear of idea, fear of something that not exists… And I really don’t know how to deal with it, except classic one method – face it again and again…
John Bardos - JetSetCitizen says on October 8th, 2009 at 9:34 pm
I can be one of those people that spends more time worrying about a problem than actually dealing with it.
Brian Tracy had some good advice, “Eat a frog” for breakfast. Do the thing you least want to do every morning and you will greatly cut back on your procrastination.
Michael says on October 11th, 2009 at 10:38 pm
They do say 99% of things you do worry about never eventuate.
To which some reply.. “…so it works then?”
Tony @ Kamobo says on October 13th, 2009 at 10:01 am
Worrying is a social phenomenon. It’s not really you. I’ve found that writing everything (I really mean everything) I am thinking about right before I go to bed helps me sleep better and feel more rested and energized when I wake up.
And as you say, Dustin, not taking action when something happens, whatever it is, will only make us think about it. Thinking about things is, more often than not, worrying.
Here’s my tip based on experience:
* Write every thought down before bed-time
* When something happens – take action
I’m sure there are more, less concrete things, to do that I’m not thinking about right now.
Strat says on October 13th, 2009 at 5:04 pm
Hi,
excellent article about this fear inside every person, this new “evilé in our modern society.
I realized that even if use a GTD method, or an other, the result will not be good before I stop to loose time to avoid problem or to worry about it.
Thanks !
Vijay says on October 19th, 2009 at 1:31 am
Hi,
Thanks for the article.
I have got some different problem, I keep thinking about things (e.g. being a programmer I keep thingking about software code) all the time, I am not sure about if it a kind of worry, but I cant stop thinking….
one more thing I am a great procrastinator…
god help me.
Mia says on November 22nd, 2009 at 11:06 pm
Thanks for this article. I do procrastinate, but usually I don’t procastinate by worrying. I procrastinate because I feel overwhelmed by a project and don’t know where to start. I procrastinate to ESCAPE the worry. Procastination doesn’t help me eliminate the need to worry, however, and eventually my procrastination drags on to the point that I am reaaaally worried – at which point I start having scary dreams about failing all my exams (or whatever). When my worry increases to the point that I’m worried most of the time and can’t “forget” my anxiety via distracting myself THEN I get off my butt and start actually doing something about it ;)
I know my pattern, I know why I procastinate… but I guess I am not motivated enough to properly change my behaviour yet.