“Worrying is using your imagination to create things you don’t want.” ~Esther Hicks
My good friend, Lisa, is an English teacher at Columbine High School (yes…that Columbine High School). Every year as she grades projects she posts quotes from her students’ senior portfolios on Facebook. Each and every time she does this, I find a gem of a quote I will use later. Today it was this quote about worry. I am not a worrier by nature. As a general rule, I’m not a great proponent of borrowing trouble because, quite honestly, I have enough of it already and I’m not really looking for more. I simply want to get through today. If I can get through today, I’ll tackle tomorrow’s problems when I get there. While I am not a big worrier, I am married to one and he passed his genes along to our oldest son. Beyond that, I have many friends who carry the genetic marker for worry. I feel for them and wish I could help, but there’s nothing I can do.
I’ve read many quotes about worry that I have passed along to the people I care about who are sufferers. The reason this particular quote speaks to me is its reference to creativity. How sad it is to squander precious creative energy on worry. I’d never looked at it that way before. I wonder how many hours’ worth of creative energy my husband has lost worrying about worst case scenarios that never happened. If you are that honestly creative, shouldn’t you spend time envisioning the best rather than the worst? Today I told Joe that instead of imagining Luke being run over by a car, maybe he should picture Luke becoming the President of the United States and taking him as the first one of our family members to ride on Air Force One like he’s already promised Joe he would.
I wonder how much creative energy is wasted daily worrying about things that will never happen. Then, I imagine what might be possible if we pooled and then redirected all that negative creativity toward a better purpose…repairing the damage to the ozone layer or cleaning up the ocean gyres or pursuing world peace, for example. The next time you’re tempted to worry, stop for just a moment to think where that creativity might be better spent. Perhaps instead of creating a problem for yourself, you can solve one that already exists.
Live Now and Zen 