The High Cost of Worry

Do you realize that worry has a price?

What would you experience if you do not give in to worry?

I recently had the opportunity to consider that cost.

A few months ago, I was in the hospital waiting for my husband to come out of surgery. It would have been easy for me to be anxious, and even worried.

Worry is living in fear of what might go wrong. It has been likened to having faith in a negative outcome.

Living in fear of what might happen diminishes our ability to make good decisions. It costs emotionally as well as physically.

How easy it is to take that path, thinking of every bad thing that might happen.

Instead, what if we would choose to be present? Not denying our feelings but not dwelling on what might go wrong.

If I had let my concern turn into anxiety, I would have missed out on:

• associating with capable and skilled doctors and attentive nurses.
• receiving the well-wishes of family and friends.
• developing a new friendship with a woman also waiting for her husband’s surgery.
• twice hearing the lullaby played over the intercom when a new baby was born.
• admiring the courage, effort and quick healing of a determined man to do all he could to get well.

Why would I want to exchange any of that goodness for the all-consuming self-attention of worry? The cost is much too high.

With love,