We like to think "stress" is a new thing, something unique to our generation. However, one of my mom's sayings was "I'm worried sick" so this notion of worry and health goes back at least 80 years. See if you agree with this author's advice to reduce worry.

As medical men know, worry can actually induce organic disease. And even when it does not, it can, by devouring our energy in unproductive ways, undermine health, render life intolerably miserable and shorten it by years.

Yet worry, against which the wonder drugs are useless, is quite curable by the individual himself. Worry lies in our minds, more often than not the result of simple misdirection of our imagination. By learning to control our processes of thought we can put worry in its proper place and make the world we live in cheerful instead of gloomy.

In setting out to achieve this control, the first popular fallacy of which we must rid ourselves is that worry is a peculiarity of the weak, the failures. On the contrary, worry may be a sign of potential strength, proof that a man cares about life and wants to make something worthwhile of his career. Men who have achieved the greatest heights, whose names are immortal, have been instinctive worriers. Yet they have nearly always had to contend, at some stage of their lives, with mental strain, and have taught themselves to overcome it.

Charles Spurgeon, celebrated 19^th-century English preacher, confessed that when he was first obliged to speak in public he worried for weeks before hand, even to the extent of hoping he would break a leg before the fateful occasion. The result was that when he entered the pulpit he was so exhausted by worry and tension that he made a poor showing.

Then one day Spurgeon faced up to the situation. “What is the worst thing that can happen to me during my sermon?” he asked himself. Whatever it might be, he decided, the heavens would not fall. He had been magnifying a personal problem into a world-shaking disaster, when he saw his worry in proper perspective, he found that he spoke much better, simply because he had not distracted his mind with empty fears. He eventually became the outstanding preacher of his time.

We should look on worry as a manifestation of nervous intensity, and therefore a potential source of good. Only when this latent force exhausts itself fruitlessly on unreal problems does it harm us. The remedy is to accept worries as part of our life and learn to handle them by redirecting the energy we are misusing into productive channels.

This is easier if we make a list of the tangible things that worry us. When they are down on paper we realize how many of them are vague, indefinite and futile. An estimate of what most people worry about runs as follows: Things that never happen: 40 percent. Things over and past that can’t be changed by all the worry in the world: 30 percent. Needless health worries: 12 percent. Petty miscellaneous worries: ten percent. Real, legitimate worries: eight percent.

If we study our worries, keeping our sense of proportion, at least some of them should be eliminated. What we imagine most easily, for example, what we dread, in reality rarely comes to pass.

One evening at La Guardia airport I found myself next to a young man who was meeting his fiancée. Presently it was announced that the plane we were awaiting had been held up by bad weather. It was half an hour, then an hour overdue. The young man’s agitation increased. It was not difficult to see that he was picturing some horrible disaster.

Finally I felt compelled to speak to him. I knew it was useless simply to tell him to stop worrying. Instead, I set up other pictures, asking whom he was expecting, what the girl was like, what she would be wearing. Soon he was telling me all about his fiancée, how they had met and so on. In a few minutes his mid was so full of other things that he had crowded worry out—indeed, the plane came in before he realized it.

Financial worries, on the other hand, are real enough and constitute a considerable part of all human anxieties. I believe there is only one way to solve them—provided we are already using our resources to best advantage. That is to apply Thoreau’s famous exhortation: “Simplify, simplify, simplify.” Thoreau found that by cutting down his needs to the minimum he was able to savor life to the full, undistracted by cares consequent upon trying to satisfy superfluous desires. With Socrates, who had applied the same remedy 200 years earlier, Thoreau could exult: “How many things I can do without!” Yet few men have led fuller, richer lives.

One of the most contented men I know is an old Maine fisherman whose sole possessions are a battered scow and his little schak on the clam flats. Completely at the mercy of wind and weather, indifferent to money, cherishing only his independence and his freedome, he manifests always a serene, sublime tranquility—a perfect example for those of us who worry ourselves to death seeking material possessions, striving desperately to insulate ourselves against the hardships and misfortunes that may lie ahead. For worry never robs tomorrow of is sorrow; it only saps today of its strength.

Self-pity is the root of many of our worries. When I was practicing medicine in London one of my patients, a young married woman was stricken with infantile paralysis. She was sent to a good hospital, where it soon became apparent that she was responding to treatment and would eventually recover. Some weeks later I received a visit from her husband. In a state of intense nervous upset, he complained of sleeplessness and inability to concentrate. After a checkup I found nothing whatever the matter with him. But when I suggested that he get back to his job he turned on me furiously. “My wife is seriously ill. And you expect me to go on as thought nothing had happened. Haven’t you any feeling for me?” The basic cause of his worry was self-pity, masquerading as concern for his wife.

For self-commiseration there is only one answer. We must effect a revolution in our lives by which, instead of seeing ourselves as the center of existence, we turn our thoughts toward others and come thus to realize our true place, as members of a family, community and nation. There are many ways by which we can come to see our difficulties in true perspective. Andre Gide played the piano: he found that his worries became insignificant in the harmony of great music. Tolstoy, contemplating the sunsets on the steppes, felt ashamed to concentrate on his own obsessions when there was so much beauty in the world. Winston Churchill, burdened with the cares of the free world, took time off from war to paint a landscape for a Christmas card!

But the finest antidote to worry is work. Lawrence of Arabia was one of the most brilliant men of action this century has produced. His mother has described how, after his failure at the Peace Conference to fulfill his promises to the Arabs, he would sit entire mornings in the same position, without moving and with the same blank expression on his face. Worry over his defeat transformed him from a man of action into a brooding, lifeless shadow. His eventual self-cure was achieved by translating this wasted energy into creative effort. He set out to write The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, a masterpiece that changed the course of history.



My Comments

 I love this essay because I am a master worrier. As a worrier, Bob Marley’s “Don’t worry, be happy” has always been incredibly annoying to me. Yes, it’s catchy and easy to dance to but asking me to “Don’t worry, be happy” is about as useful as saying “Stop breathing, be happy.” Sorry, I can't do either. I love that Cronin admits that although excessive worry is bad, when used to prepare us for the future, worry can be a good thing. Ha! I feel justified as a worrier.

Cronin says, “Only when this latent force [worry] exhausts itself fruitlessly on unreal problems does it harm us. The remedy is to accept worries as part of our life and learn to handle them by redirecting the energy we are misusing into productive channels.”

He presents the following options for doing so:

• Realize that the worst possible outcome of a situation isn’t really as bad as you imagine
• Write down your worries and realize that only a small percentage of them are real, actionable worries
• Distract yourself
• Counteract self-pity by realizing that you are a part of something bigger: family, community, nation, the earth
• Get busy with work

And finally, to deal with the real worries of finances, simplify your life so you don’t need to finance as much.

I would add, as a corollary to the fourth bullet, that pride can also lead to unnecessary worry. My fear of public speaking came from my pride: I didn’t want to look less than perfect in front of strangers. I am happy that now that I have already made a fool of myself countless times, the threat of adding one more embarrassing moment to the list has much less power over my emotions. Once you let go of pride, many worries disappear.

To be honest, however, I have to admit that the real cause of my lessening worry is actually pretty close to the subtext of Marley's song: I take medication for my fibromyalgia which makes my pain manageable and also mitigates my panic and anxiety. Maybe that's cheating...

Getting back to the essay, how many of these strategies have you tried? What’s worked? What hasn’t?



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Here's the cover of a 2011 biography of the author of this essay.

It turns out that although Cronin may have admired that Maine fisherman for his simplification, Cronin never needed to follow his own advice of simplification. Although he may have initially wanted to write literary novels, he ended up writing stories for financial success. Not to say that the two need always be mutually exclusive, but have you ever heard of A. J. Cronin?

By the time he worked with Reader's Digest, he was a seasoned negotiator. Here's an excerpt from the biography.

"Bearing all the circumstances in mind, which I will not bore you by enumerating, I feel very strongly that, in the case of the Digest Condensed Books, a 50–50 division is not equitable to me as the author, and I propose (using the mildest word possible) a 60–40 split. … [I]t’s not the cash, which is inconsequential, but the principle that matters…"

In the end he left millions to his heirs. Was it really the principle that mattered? Your guess is as good as mine.