I come from a long line of worriers. Worrying in my family was a way of showing you care. If you love someone, you naturally worry about them. You want the best life for them, so you try to prevent the worst fate. If you don’t worry about someone, then you are obviously indifferent to their fate. If I had a dime for every time my mother imagined that I was “dead in a ditch somewhere” I would be set for life financially. In my family the motto might well have been: I love. Therefore I worry.
Worry tries to spare us pain in an unpredictable world. It's just trying to help.
So as I made the passage in life from childhood to adulthood, I naturally made the transition from the Child-to-be-Worried-About to the Chief Executive Worrier. And I was a pro, I tell you. “Dead in a ditch somewhere” was just the beginning of where my troubled mind wandered.
But it turns out that worry wears you down. It consumes you. I began to wonder if it was really all that necessary to do. Does one really need to worry? Or is it a habit that can be overcome with discipline? And so I began to examine the habit of worrying and asked myself this question: Why worry?
Before I tell you my answer, I want to tell you a story. Last year, around about Memorial Day, we were planning on having some friends over for lunch. With happiness singing in my heart about the day ahead, I set out for the grocery store to pick up some treats that we all could munch on while lunch was being prepared: some fresh pita bread, some hummus. Some kalamata olives. As I left the grocery store — a fresh breeze blowing some puffy white clouds over the blue sky — a sick feeling started to overcome me. Worry. I could feel it in my gut. Goading me. Prodding me.
But why? Everything was perfect just as it was. The food. The weather. The friends.
So I tuned into that sick feeling. “What are you trying to tell me?” I asked it.
Worry answered me. And this is what Worry said: “You can’t be this happy forever. It can’t last. That sniffle you heard from your daughter as you walked out the door is probably the start of a full-blown cold. You might as well go home and cancel with your friends. You don’t want to get them sick. They’ll blame you, of course, and they’d be right to do so. And by the way, you probably didn’t get enough food. And if you did, it’s probably the wrong kind. Do your guests have allergies? You probably didn’t check. You never do. And those clouds? Looks like rain. You’ll probably have to spend the afternoon indoors. And I don’t think your house is picked up enough. You know there are dust bunnies on the stairs. And your guests probably won’t mention it, but you know they’ll see it. Sure they’ll keep quiet about your poor housekeeping while they’re at your house, but you can also be sure they’ll go home and that’s all they’ll want to talk about.”
And so here I was, in the midst of a beautiful day, preparing for a joyous occasion with friends I adored and I was full of feelings of powerlessness, inadequacy, sadness, and betrayal.
My happy day was ruined before it had even begun. Worry had had its way with me. And succeeded.
But succeeded at what? Destroying my happiness? Is that what Worry is trying to do?
I don’t think so. Far from it. I actually think, in its own misguided way, Worry is trying to protect my happiness. “But how?” you might ask. “Worry just told you every reason NOT to be happy.” True. But, I think that Worry has the best intentions. In fact, I think that Worry is trying to teach what the Buddha taught: that everything is impermanent. Even our happiness. Even life itself.
The difference between what Worry is doing and what the Buddha is teaching is this: the Buddha’s wise teaching is trying to instill within us an awareness that pain and loss are inevitable, so that we can enjoy our happiness while it is happening. Worry on the other hand is overzealous in its attempts to protect us. Worry tells us, “Pain is inevitable so you might as well start experiencing pain RIGHT NOW! That way, you won’t be so upset when the inevitable comes to pass.” In its attempt to protect us from pain, Worry creates pain. In an attempt to protect our happiness, Worry destroys it. In an effort to block the rain and the wind, it also blocks out the light.
So Worry wants to be our friend. It wants to help us. It wants to spare us pain in an unpredictable world. It just goes a little too far out of its way to warn us. So next time Worry taps you on the shoulder and tells you, “Excuse me, you seem to be enjoying this walk through life, but I just wanted to tell you that Pain and Sorrow are just around the corner waiting to sucker punch you,” you can tell Worry, “Thanks friend. But I already knew that. They’re always there. I’ve seen them many times before. They’re not as tough as they look. By the way, did you happen notice the beautiful sunset? Let’s stroll together and enjoy it while we can.”
