Why worry?

It's a good thing imaginations are imaginary.

If worries were reality, the world would’ve ended at least three times since 1960.

It would’ve ended in 1962 with the Cuban Missile Crisis causing a nuclear armageddon.

It would’ve ended at 12:00:00 AM on January 1, 2000 with Y2K obliterating all technology.

And it would’ve ended on December 12, 2012 with the Mayan calendar ending humanity.

If worries were reality, the world would’ve ended a few million times over, and most times would’ve been a merciful stroke of luck to stop whatever hellscape the planet had become in light of reality-becoming-truth for all ~108 billion Homo sapiens to ever live.

But here’s the nice thing:

Most worries are imaginary. 

One of my favorite quotes comes from Mark Twain: 

“I've had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened.”

In 2020, researchers at Penn State conducted a study that had participants write down their specific worries for 10 days. Over the following 30 days, participants reviewed their list of worries every evening to see which ones had materialized. 

The result?

91% of worries never came true. Of the 9% that did, the outcome was better than expected about a third of the time.

Most things we worry about — the vast majority in fact — never happen.

But worry is (unfortunately) one of those instances where emotion trumps logic. “Don’t worry” might be the only advice that consistently has the opposite effect of its intention.

We can try to combat worry through logic, but worry, like all our emotions, is rooted in biology. If you were a nomadic hunter in 34 B.C. with the attitude of a California surfer from 1998, you would’ve ended up like a rabbit at a hyena convention.

Worry — and anxiety — keep us on edge. They stimulate our fight-or-flight response. And in life-or-death situations, that’s a necessity.

But most of modern life isn’t “or-death.” So worry — our preparation and defense mechanism — fabricates negative outcomes instead of solving them.

“Yeah, Adam. I get it. Worrying doesn’t help. Still gonna worry.” 

Yeah. Me too.

Broadly speaking, our psychological responses are here to stay. Eliminating worry would be like eliminating calmness. Or contentment. Or vigilance.

They’re components of the human experience, all of which serve a purpose in appropriate doses and cause discomfort in excessive doses.

For most of us, worry will always be a part of life.

But take a look at the last 30 days of your life.

Think about all the worries that spiked your anxiety over that time.

Examine how many of those came true. 

And next time worries start to pile up, think back to Twain:

“I've had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened.”