Why Worry?
The lost art of keeping calm in the age of anxiety.
Worry is a word fraught with meaning, little, if any of it positive. It implies a level of anxiety that goes beyond mere concern or awareness of an issue. While it does not exclude the possibility of empathy, it can produce a kind of paralysis that makes it difficult to apply it usefully.
We worry a lot these days, and not just about the usual problems associated with day-to-day life. Indeed, for those of us fortunate enough to live in the so called ‘developed world’, most of the issues that occupied our ancestors have receded well into the background.
Now our worries extend well beyond our local circles of family and friends, and even regional and national boundaries. We worry about climate change, distant wars, the real or perceived level of crime in faraway cities, the economy, etc.
These are not things over which we have any direct control. Even our votes are too diluted to count as more than drops in the ocean. With the exception of small local races, no candidate ever wins by just one vote, and even if they did and we happened to vote for them, we would still have to share credit for their victory with every other individual who also voted for them.
Though I have not found a source, the Dalai Lama is widely quoted as having…
