While watching a man lifting a heavy box on the ground the idea of this post emerged. I imagined the box filled with our worries. Worrying about bad things that could happen to us in the future and with regrets for what we did in the past.
Not only that as we tend to “import” the problems and worries of others and make them our own.
We fill the box with items we do not need and hurt us, but also keep increasing the weight of the box making it even harder to lift it.
Our wrongdoings continue for we lift the box using the wrong practices. We know that lifting heavy boxes the wrong way may lead to several health problems such as muscle and hip injuries and heart problems resulting in high blood pressure.
Are you carrying a package of past memories that you cannot change? Alternatively, future worries that what you do might not work? Are you trying then to change or control what you have no power to change or control?
Thinking about these two questions may help us empty the box of unnecessary heavy worries before lifting the box.
Take this scenario. You invest your money in stocks that you studied well and seemed to be promising. You did your homework.
Murphy’s Law steps in and things go wrong. Some events beyond your control happen and the prices of the stocks you bought drop.
You start worrying about what would happen instead of learning how to be a smarter investor in the future. You lift the heavy box of your worries with the wrong mindset. You only add to your problems and create new ones at the same time. The wrong mindset leads to carrying the heavy box of worries the wrong way leading to extra problems.
Enjoy what you are doing and if you fail, accept that this is a learning experience.
Remember that not all worries are lightweight. Be calm and do what you should do while freeing yourself from worries.
Make your life light.
I concur fully with your insightful comment Aldo.
Pain of worrying sends us a message to act and alert us that there is a problem that warrants our attention.
However, when worrying paralyzes us we end up with its pain being unable to deal with it.
You are very right.
I share your comment.
And thanks for your attention.
Worry is often a functional mechanism that helps us deal better with situations by properly planning our actions and focusing our energies and efforts on issues deemed important.
But sometimes worries get out of hand and end up managing our lives: they distract us from everyday life, make it difficult for us to concentrate on work and sleep at night, lower our mood. As for the future, we could go on worrying about it all our lives, but this enormous expenditure of energy would not change things. Indeed, worries immobilize us, making us waste time continuing to think about a future that has not yet arrived and that worries us.
The best antidote to worry is action: get out, take a distraction, engage your mind to “disconnect”.
Awareness of the futility of worrying can also help. Perhaps we have already had some experience of unnecessary worries and it is good to remember them.
Some scholars, I’ve read, suggest an effective antidote: Allow increasingly shorter times for worries and plan a moment of your time to devote yourself to reflecting on the worry. Will it work?