quotations about worry & worrying
Worrying is a waste of our time. Period. If we are worrying, then we are not doing anything about anything.
JANICE CORSANO
This Is Only a Dream!: When You Die You Wake Up
Worrying is holding on to problems without seeking help.
MELVIN R. HALL
The Sky's the Limit: Go for the Gold!
People who are prone to worrying are soft-wired to pay attention to threatening news, thereby building up a library of evidence in their brains that worrying is necessary. Think about it. On any given day, there are so many threatening things happening in the world -- anything from new viruses, terrorist attacks, or political conflicts to a hostile email or upcoming storm are all real events. Yet, if you only pay attention to the threats, you have no space left in your brain to process anything else. Threat becomes your reality, and worry becomes your justifiable response. Anyone telling you to give up your worry will sound out of touch, to say the least.
SRINI PILLAY
"Managing worry in generalized anxiety disorder", Harvard Health Publications, February 17, 2016
Worry is different from fear. If fear is like a raging fever, worry is a low-grade temperature. It nags at us, simmers in our souls, hovers in the back of our minds like a faint memory. We may fear certain realities, like death; we worry about vague possibilities. Worry distracts us more than paralyzes us. It is like a leaky faucet we never get around to fixing.
GERALD LAWSON SITTSER
The Will of God As a Way of Life
The cause of worry is life: its cure is death.
CALEB WILLIAMS SALEEBY
Worry: The Disease of the Age
Worry is a starting place, but not a staying place.
SYBIL MACBETH
Praying in Color: Drawing a New Path to God
Put your energy into today and stop worrying about the past.
ERIN HUNTER
Rising Storm
Worrying is designed to weaken us so that we don't overcome.
ANGELA NAYLOR
No One Sees My Pain
Worrying ... is always useless. It is a form of inner considering--i.e. of identifying. It is a continual mixing up of negative imagination with a few facts and so makes only wrong connections.
MAURICE NICOLL
Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky
Drag your thoughts away from your troubles -- by the ears, by the heels, or any other way, so you manage it.
MARK TWAIN
The American Claimant
There are very few things in the mind which eat up as much energy as worry. It is one of the most difficult things not to worry about anything. Worry is experienced when things go wrong, but in relation to past happenings it is idle merely to wish that they might have been otherwise. The frozen past is what it is, and no amount of worrying is going to make it other than what it has been. But the limited ego-mind identifies itself with its past, gets entangled with it and keeps alive the pangs of frustrated desires.
MEHER BABA
Discourses
Worry is the secret weapon perpetrated upon us by the dark forces of the world that lurk in the shape of fear, uncertainty, confusion, and loss. We, on the other hand, have our own secret weapon against these incorporeal fiends. It is laughter.
VERA NAZARIAN
The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration
Worry is like a rocking chair--it keeps you busy but gets you nowhere.
KATIE DALE
Someone Else's Life
Worry is a fidgety girl who can't do things right. In the morning she dresses herself but the clothes don't fit. Worry is slim. Worry is fat. Worry is never what she wants to be.
EILEEN CURTEIS
Reiki: A Spiritual Doorway to Natural Healing
Don't worry, be happy.
BOBBY MCFERRIN
"Don't Worry, Be Happy"
Worms eat you when you're dead; worries eat you when you're alive.
JEWISH PROVERB
Action is worry's worst enemy.
AMERICAN PROVERB
What's the use of worrying?
It never was worth while,
So, pack up your troubles in your old kit-bag,
And smile, smile, smile.
GEORGE ASAF
"Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit-bag"
Worry in the dark can make it even darker.
CAMRON WRIGHT
The Rent Collector
Worrisome thoughts reproduce faster than rabbits, so one of the most powerful ways to stop the spiral of worry is simply to disclose my worry to a friend.... The simple act of reassurance from another human being [becomes] a tool of the Spirit to cast out fear.
JOHN ORTBERG, JR.
The Me I Want to Be