Freedom From Worry
Posted on November 17, 2008
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How not to worry is a struggle I’ve had for my whole life. But recently I’ve made some observations and come to some conclusions that helped me to grow stronger in this area – that have really guided me down the path of finding the solution of how not to worry about everything under the sun.
People who have known me most of my life can attest to my worrier status. I am the poster child for the Worriers Club, maybe even president. I don’t know if I was born with this or learned it, but my mom too struggles with worrying. That may be where it came from, I don’t know. One thing I do know is that I worry over almost everything and I too know that my worrying has never changed a thing!
First of all, all the worrying in the world is not going to change the outcome of something. I used to worry about my kids being safe on their way to school. Of course, I set up rules and provisions to try to keep them safe; I told them not to talk to any strangers, and made sure they didn’t walk alone. I was a proactive parent, and I did what was considered advisable to keep them safe.
But the bottom line is, as soon as they leave the house something could happen to them. They could get hit by a car. They could slip on ice and break their arm. They could get to the corner and take a right instead of a left. And I couldn’t do anything about it, and all my worrying wouldn’t change that at all!
Up until to now, thank goodness, this has not occurred. Actually, there has never been anything substantial happen to any of my 5 kids. And my oldest is in High School. That adds up to a lot of worrying with no need. So this brings up my next idea.
It seems that most of my worries never come to fruition anyway. Wow – it made me start changing my philosophy. I now try to weigh how realistic my fears are to determine if I need to worry about it or not – still in the process of not worrying at all, ok? I got to chance to start this process when my 9-yr old got to have a plane ride from his Sunday school teacher for memorizing bible verses. Now his teacher was a pilot so the chance of anything happening was slim. So in figuring out the odds that something might happen, even though it appeared dangerous, I knew that I didn’t need to worry all that much.
Lastly, I have found worrying can really bring problems. I have been a business owner for the last 20 years. Being self-employed is a lesson in worrying over money. I have always said that I live and die by the mailman – who brings my checks. I can spend hours stewing over the books, calculating then recalculating the bills and all that happens here is I lose time where I could be doing billable work! Then all my worrying would make things worse. That would be bad!
What we’ve recently done is my wife has taken over paying the bills, so I can concentrate on income producing activities. She’s not the worrier I am, and even if she does worry about it, it doesn’t detract from the actual goal of making the needed income to pay the bills.
If you want to know how not to worry, try to readjust your thinking in the 3 ways I’ve outlined above. And remember what the Bible says: “Do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
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