What Me Worry

That smiling foggy faced gap toothed image haunts me. Alfred E Newman smiles at the onlooker with the words imprinted below his picture; "What Me Worry." He may imaginatively walk the halls of "Mad Magazine" but he also appears once in a while in my mind's eye reminding me of my worry habit.

I was almost over my irritation of waiters and waitresses responding "No problem" when I thanked them for my food when the phrase changed overnight. I mean I am not talking about problems when I say "thank you" so why should the response be "No Problem?" Have I bothered them or something and they are excusing me? My youngest daughter insists that I'm hung up and that this is simply her generation's way of saying, "You're welcome."

So just about the time I settled in to "No problem" I started hearing, "No worries." What? Do I look worried when I look up from my hamburger? Did I oversleep only to wake up in a world of "no worries?" Wouldn't that be nice.

I recently preached a sermon on Worry. I had to admit to the congregation that me giving advice on not worrying was like Osama Ben Laden giving a lecture on peace and love. So as I have often done before I was preaching first to myself.

I used Jesus' famous, "Why are you worried so much" talk that he gave to his tiny band of "worried" disciples. It seems he sat them down in the middle of a field of wild flowers, picked one of them, and said,"Look long and hard at this flower...does it look worried?...The birds flying overhead, do they seem to suffer from anxiety?...My dad seems to be able to provide for them so why are your brows so furrowed and your stomachs in knots?"

So while I preached I held up a single wildflower and reminded me and any who would listen some interesting tid-bits about worry...Want to hear some of them?
-40% of what we worry about never happens
-30% is worry over the past so we can't do much about it
-12% is needless worries about our health
-10% is centered on petty, miscellaneous worries
-leaving 8% worth worrying about.....so 92% of our worries are as Earl Nightingale in his book "The Essence of Success" says are "pure fog with no substantial chance of happening."

How about them odds?

I also mentioned signs of unproductive worry as listed by Robert Leahy in "The Worry Cure."...
-you worry about unanswerable questions
-you worry about a chain reaction of events
-you reject a solution because it is not perfect
-you think you should worry until you feel less anxious
-you think you should worry until you control everything

Can't you just overhear a flower say, "Hummm I wonder if the sun will come up tomorrow...and if it does not how will I survive...and if I have trouble surviving what about the seeds I was going to spread next Spring?...and if I can't spread seeds then why am I even here?...but if I concentrate on these 'what if's' at least I can keep from being so afraid...but how can I get hold of the one who controls the sun???"

There is a kind of strange silliness in my/our efforts at worry. It betrays a need for control but also a deeper need to develop the art of letting go so that we can again be faced with the issues of trust and faith. Carl Jung once responded when asked if he believed in God, "Believe...? I know there is a God! God is my name for all things that I did not myself create that come across my path and gets in the way of my carefully developed plans and desires."

It is not just a saying on a cross-stitched wall hanging. It's wisdom: "O God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change...the courage to change the things I can...and the wisdom to know the difference."

What me worry? Today I will attempt to pay a little more attention to those few flowers that are attempting to break Winter's grip as they remind me that Spring is coming. When will it come? If you listen to the breeze that blows those flowers to and fro you will hear a a gentle whisper that says, "No worries."

Bless you
jody