Mark Twain said “Worrying is like paying a debt you don’t owe”.
We start paying the moment we start worrying.
Compounded worry is what happens when we worry about worry.
The best advice is still the decades old solution from Dale Carnegie whose book about worry remains in the top 100 bestselling books:
Whenever you’re worrying about something, you need to do three things:
Here it goes.
Imagine you win the lottery.
Ask yourself who would be truly happy that you did and wouldn’t be unhappy if you never gave them any money.
That’s the definition of a real friend.
The Handbook on Happiness reminds us when you encounter someone who is upset, remember: an expression other than love is a call for help.
Respond with compassion rather than anger or judgement.
Enjoy the last long holiday weekend of the summer – see you on Tuesday.
Here’s what Amber Escudero-Kontostathis who was struck by lightning in early August near The White House says according to a New York Times account:
Her heart stopped twice, her nerves continue to misfire, her foot sometimes feels like it is bare in snow and on the worst days there are 10,000 grains of salt moving through each pore of her feet – she walks with a walker and grieves three others standing beside her who were not as fortunate.
Her response is always – “I’m grateful, I’m grateful”.
Gratitude is not just a word, it’s a way of life that relieves the pain of adversity when it strikes.
A new study says most families only have dinner together 3 out of 7 days a week.
Wash your hands, don’t talk with a full mouth, don’t slurp your food or drink, chew with your mouth closed and don’t make noises with eating utensils remain the same etiquette but phone distractions are not studied.
Most want more dinners together but they can’t make them happen.
If there is one thing that must not be disrupted, it’s the entire family dining and talking together.
Self-silencing is repressing your feelings when they could threaten relationships or security and on-the-surface appearing agreeable.
I see it in my young students who are very concerned about affecting relationships by saying too much so they hang back.
An alternative to self-silencing is the good use of human relations – there is almost nothing that cannot be communicated in a civil way.
Asking questions instead of making comments is my favorite when feelings are in play – through questions you can make yourself clear and you get great input from others.
“A champion is defined not by their wins, but by how they can recover when they fail.” — Serena Williams
The Nonconformist reminds us that Bill Gates who founded and built the mighty Microsoft first flopped with a company called Traf-O-Data.
He reflected many years later in 2017 that failing helped him understand microprocessors which turned out to be crucial for the success of Microsoft.
Adversity is an opportunity to get better.
Don’t allow expectations to get too high.
Amp up your motivation to succeed.
Avoid the ups and downs of missed expectations.
The power to make choices is always the way back from adversity.
Whatever it was – however it hurts – it happened.
Now what are you going to do about it?
The past is the past but where you go from here is the power to choose.
When a baseball player is in a slump and they fail to get on base, strike out a lot or see their batting average decline, you would think they would dread their next at-bat.
But it works the other way.
They can’t wait to get a crack at it again – even if they fail some more until they figure out how to get back on track.
Now that’s worth borrowing in our everyday lives.