Blog #7: Worry

I’ve worried about a lot of stupid things in my life. I’ve worried about the way I look, and whether I look better with long or short hair. I’ve worried about my grades, my reputation, and my future. I’ve worried that I will be a failure— whatever that means— and I’ve worried that I will lose sight of my values. Boy, have I worried about a lot of these blog posts. Some of these things are important things. Some are clearly not. In the past, as I tried to decide what was important enough to worry about and what wasn’t, I started worrying about my worrying. I worried that I worried too much in the present, I worried about unchangeable things in the past, and I worried about getting worried in the future.

If you’re like me, I’ve said the word ‘worry’ enough times for it to lose its meaning in your head- like after you say your own name seventeen times in a row and it stops sounding like your name but instead just sounds like some distorted noise with no inherent meaning and you forget what words are and you lose your identity for a second. You know what I mean?

In a way, this is what I feel worry does to the things I worry about. Instead of being able to see a situation clearly, my constant worrying about it distorts it into an unrecognizable concept in my mind. Sure, I know that my grades are fine and that they don’t define my success as a person, but constantly worrying about them distorts this knowledge. Instead, my grades become the determinant of not just my intelligence, but my future success, my likability, my worth.

Many people don’t expect this from me. Although I have worked to minimize my worrying, especially in regard to particularly menial issues, the air of self-assurance and ‘not-caring-what-anyone-thinks-about-me’ attitude I often portray are not always accurate. Sometimes I am so content with myself that I genuinely don’t worry about what others think about me. Sometimes I worry a lot.

Inner conflicts such as these are exacerbated when new and challenging circumstances arise, such as moving to the opposite end of the world to spend a semester in a country SO unlike your own. I knew this going in, and yet, for over a year before coming to India, I still worried.

Would I get sick of the food? Would I make friends, or spend half a year alone? Would it be too much of a challenge for me? Would it be enough of a challenge? What would I do if I got sick and couldn’t figure out my foreign health insurance? Would the experience be worth it? Once, I worried so much that my Indian Visa wouldn’t come in that I called into work late so I could keep crying in my car.

Now, here I am, sitting on my bed in an apartment I share with two close friends, after having had dinner with even more friends, laughing at my own past pain. Even in that period where worry comprised at least 90% of my conscious thought, I knew that life would move on, things would happen as they would (but not necessarily as I thought they should), and I would find happiness regardless of the outcome. And let’s be honest— there rarely is an outcome so terrible and finite that happiness and fulfillment cannot be found again. Though at times worry may blur this reality, it does not alter the reality of its existence.

Sarah, my very first friend on this trip, whose boldness and insight I’ve come to admire, recently told me that she “quit” the habit of trying to figure things out. Instead, she lets things be as they are, and lets herself be satisfied with her life as it presently is. Though this isn’t necessarily a fix-all for worrying, what a place to start. Our lives are not math problems that have a singular correct outcome; there are no solutions to “figure out.” Acknowledging this is such a brilliant way to lift the lenses of distortion worry places over our eyes. When we stop worrying about figuring things out, we are more able to have a clear vision of the beauty that is the present.

In the end, things are going to turn out how they turn out. As I say to my mom, despite how much she hates it when I say this, “Either things work out, or you die.” (Not quite the touching note you figured I would end on, right?) If you’re reading this, it means you’re lucky enough to still be alive, and even if in the most unexpected of ways, things have essentially worked out. Life is a weird grab bag of disappointment and success, pain and joy, love and loss. Worrying will change none of this, but accepting it for what it is can at least reduce the tension. I know it’s easy to say ‘stop worrying,’ so instead, just let this be a reminder that either things work out, or… they work out. Is that better?