Verb -To torment oneself with or suffer from disturbing thoughts
-Give way to anxiety or unease; allow one's mind to dwell on difficulty or troubles
Noun -A cause of uneasiness or anxiety; trouble.
-A State of anxiety and uncertainty over actual or potential problems
That's right, we torment ourselves with disturbing thoughts. We lead the way to our own negativity, uneasiness, and anxiety. We continue to dwell on our "troubles"- allowing ourselves to suffer. We also let the uncertainty of events, emotions, and thoughts overwhelm us- regardless of the problems being actual or potential.
"If I had to live my life over, I would perhaps have more actual troubles but I'd have fewer imaginary ones." - Don Herold
Worrying is something we all tend to do far too often. Sometimes, worrying can even lead to positive results. In most cases however, we end up investing negative emotions and thoughts into circumstances and events, and it eventually leads to negative outcomes.
We hope to change and control our future, but our negative thinking and emotions can too often cloud our judgement and blind us- leading to undesired outcomes. The outcome of these events then conditions us to be even more negative, and it seems to become a repetitive cycle. Those who break the cycle are those who break their worries. But naturally, most of us require a lot of time and experience to figure this out- most of us have to learn it the hard way.
Fortunately, our world is filled with wisdom provided by those who have amassed and solved worries in their time. These teachers have built systems that are now time-tested techniques. They shared them for a reason- and we ought to look at some of these seemingly simple, yet amazing techniques.
The techniques below were taken from Dale Carnegie’s “How to Stop Worrying and Start Living.”
Willis Carrier, the man had who invented the modern day air conditioning and the Carriers Corporation, used an anti-stress technique for decades:
“Step 1- What is the worst that could happen? Analyze the situations without fear and with all honesty. Figure out what was the worst that could happen as a result of failure.”
