Is worry a need for humans? No, it’s not, but it is something we all do naturally, day in and day out. It has become our nature to worry, so much so that we don;t even give it a thought. We never think if worry is necessary or whether it is getting us somewhere. We just worry.
We all worry about someone or something, almost all the time. Some of our worries are minor—will my maid come to work tomorrow, or will it rain tomorrow and spoil my picnic? while many of our worries are of a more serious nature. “Will I get a fatal disease and die? Will I lose my job? Will I become poor? Will I come under the scrutiny of government departments? Will there be a future famine or pandemic? Will something happen to my parent, kids, spouse? Will I be able to pass the exams and go ahead? and so on and so forth. The list of things we worry about, on a day-to-day basis, is infinite and endless.
How does this phenomenon of worry, to which all of us are naturally addicted, help us? Does it help us, at all, or is it only creating more trouble for us? If we were to look back on our own past experiences, and those of others, we would probably conclude that most often, worrying is a waste of time. It has been often postulated that 99 percent of the things we worry about, actually never come true. Worrying also takes away our creative time and power, where instead of worrying we could have applied our mind to something more creative, more fruitful. Time lost in worrying often gets us nothing. In fact, worrying leads to anxiety and is often the starting point of stress and a host of stress related diseases, like migraine, acidity, irritable bowel, constipation, skin diseases, and even serious ones like hypertension, diabetes and heart disease.
Why do we indulge in an activity which, if we think logically, yields practically nothing, but takes away so much from us? Why does every human being spend so much time in worry, when he could use that time more productively? We behave as if worrying about a problem will make it go away, when we know that logically that is not true. Can we stop this worry train, and use that energy elsewhere?
There are 2 main reasons why we worry so much.
One, is because the future is unknown, unpredictable, nebulous, and we have no clue what tomorrow or even the next moment will bring. A man could be walking down the street one moment and be struck down by a passing vehicle the next or have a heart attack and fall down. There could be an earthquake next minute and we could lose all that we possess. Today, we and our family are healthy. Tomorrow could bring an unpleasant diagnosis. Or fortunes could change, and we could find ourselves in financial trouble tomorrow. Or the world could become victim of a major pandemic, as we saw in the last 2 years, and things could change drastically. The possibilities are endless, and there is no way of knowing now, how the future will be. And since our logical mind wants answers, wants sureties and guarantees and predictability, this uncertainty does not sit well with the mind, and it triggers the mind into worrying about all possible future scenarios.
P V Vaidyanathan
