Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
Worry wart
I worry about making a living — maybe not two months from now or six months from now, but two or three years from now? Anything can happen.
I worry about hostile competition, and all the grief they can cause.
I worry about the fact that outside of my own family, I never know who to trust. (I can’t help it. Paranoia runs deep in my blood.)
I worry about the fact that I’m having a harder time remembering whether it’s “who to trust” or “whom to trust.” All I remember is that sometimes, the answer is counterintuitive, and that it depends largely on the structure of the clause.
I worry about my son’s future.
I worry about OUR future.
I worry about my blood pressure. Yes, this is counterproductive.
But most of all, I worry about President Sarah Palin.
What are you worried about?
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Anyone up for live-blogging tonight?
D.
I am worried about Sarah Palin, brain tumors, 2012, the usual stuff, cancer, seizures, earthquakes, John McCain, Bush doing something stupid (typical) before he leaves office.
Wonder a worrywart is and if you truly are one?
The job of worry is to anticipate danger before it arises and identify possible perils, to come up with ways to lessen the risks, and to rehearse what you plan to do. Worrywarts get stuck in identifying danger as they immerse themselves in the dread associated with the threat, which may be real or, more likely, imagined. They spin out an endless loop of melodrama, blowing everything out of proportion. “What if I have a heart attack?” “What if there is an earthquake?” “What if someone breaks in when I’m asleep?”
While worrywarts insist worrying is helpful, little is solved. Stuck in thinking ruts, they stop living in the here and now–the present moment. Worrywarting is torment–a kind of self-imposed purgatory that makes you feel bad, stresses you out, and wastes precious moments of your life.
Worse yet, worry begets more worry, setting into motion a vicious circle of frightening thoughts and anxious response. It is self-perpetuating, pushing into greater anxiety and more worry. Allowed to continue unchecked, chronic worry can evolve into panic attacks and, in extreme cases, agoraphobia, which is a paralyzing fear of having a panic attack, especially in public. It can be so severe that, in the worst cases, the sufferer can’t leave home.
For how to stop worrywarting and start worry smart, visit my site.
CD: Cancer! How could I forget cancer!
Dr. BP: I feel so much better now 🙂
I’m really trying not to worry. And to eat more chocolate. Also, currently having much fun coming up with new ways to cook zucchini since it is that time of year.
Whenever I start to worry (no money saved for retirement, an uncertain future in publishing and the fear that staying means financial ruin and leaving means forever feeling regretful that I may have “made it,” my dog is old and I can’t bear to lose her, my son is growing too fast and I can’t bear to lose him, do the very expensive koi in my pond have fish lice?, what if my house catches fire?, cancer, loss of loved ones, is the book I just turned in okay?) I try to remember that worrying is just praying for what you don’t want.
Take a breath. Think of three things you can DO about what you’re fretting over, do them, and let it be.
Don’t pray for what you don’t want. Focus on positives.
Anyway, that kind of self talk has helped me tremendously.
I worry about my 53rd birthday. (2.04 years from now)
I worry about my heart (this goes along with my 53rd birthday worry as my father and sister dropped dead at 52)
I worry about my kids and their kids.
I understand the worry about trusting outside your family…..I KNOW who “really” has my back (short story……When I get my yearly or every two year MRI my husband goes in with me…..the MRI tech usually gives me ALOT of grief about it BUT I tell them if this place burns around me I KNOW my husband will get me out!!! TRUST!! then they usually roll their eyes and do the scan!)
I worry about red meat (LOL) I don’t eat it but I worry about it!! (OK I don’t worry about it often only when I hear about Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE)……)
I feel worry keeps me focused 🙂
“When I really worry about something, I don’t just fool around. I even have to go to the bathroom when I worry about something. Only, I don’t go. I’m too worried to go. I don’t want to interrupt my worrying to go.”
– J.D. Salinger
I worry about climate change, the environment, something dire (or not so dire) happening to my kids, going blind from my cataracts or my pigment sloughing, getting Alzheimer’s like my grandmother’s, my parents dying, yadda yadda yadda. And now, one more thing to worry about – the horrific vision of having Ms. Sarah Palin run the U.S. (the more I learn, the less I like – with her secrecy and loyalty obsession she sounds like a clone of the current Pres.). Yuck.
I worry about everything.
But if all else fails, I will support you in exchange for gnat removal from my ears. The buggers love my ear canal. Why I do not know. Is ear wax and insect aphrodisiac?
If you really want to whig out, google Palingenesis (particularly the Wikipedia entry).
M
Just in case you’ve forgotten our father’s famous line: “What if, what if…if a frog had wings, he wouldn’t bump his ass on the ground.”
I worry about death due to stress and/or cancer, earthquakes, being blown up by a nutjob student…but most of the time, I’m far too busy to concentrate on the worrying…that would seem to be the key to being a worry wart…at least it is for me.
Oh, and thank you John McCain for giving us Sarah Palin to worry about too.
I worry about just about everything but you’re right, right now the idea of President Palin terrifies me. I think it’s beating out cancer on my list.
Visit my web site. I’ll give you something to needlessly worry about and I’ll get my hyperlink correct even though I don’t list all sorts of credentials on my site. I may even get some bad hair and post it there too. Who me worry? SHE-IT No.
Whoa! A lot of Palin-worry out there. Seems I’m not alone. What, you guys don’t want to see the female Chauncey Gardiner as President?
(Although, at least Chance was relatively benign . . .)