Say no to worry!
As 2016 comes to an end and I now look forward to 2017, I find myself pondering all the things that stole my joy in 2016. The things that kept me awake at night; the things I worried myself skinny about yet I didn’t have total control of them.
2016 has been an amazing year for me, a lot of incredible things have happened; I finished my master’s degree, found something to keep me busy, met some really awesome friends and the list goes on. Despite these awesome things, worry also took a toll on me. I don’t want to call myself a “worrier” but those that are close to me will agree with me that I worry about anything and everything under the sun. From worrying about gaining too much weight to losing too much of it, to what food to eat, to failed relationships, misunderstandings, career prospects, and what the future holds for a 30 something-year-old. Tell me your problems and I will add them to my list of worries. It is seriously that bad.
I have recently asked myself, ‘Sharon, why worry about things you don’t have control over?’. You see I had spent the past 2-3 weeks worried to death about whether my visa would be renewed or not. Even though I did all the necessary arrangements, I couldn’t switch off that worry button. I reviewed the documents over and over again, but there was nothing much I could add to my initial prepared documents except to submit the application and hope for the best. To my surprise, I received my visa extension in less than an hour without any hassles from the immigration officers. All this while, I was thinking of my unplanned return home. This is just an example of the so many things that got me all anxious and kept me awake at night however they worked out in my favor in the end.
Not only does worrying affect productivity but also it deprives you of today’s joy by using up all your energy to focus on what could go wrong rather than concentrating all the positive things that could go right.
As I painfully realize the so much energy used in worrying, I am learning to live in the moment. It’s okay not to have everything figured out because there is a power higher above me that knows it all. It is so easy to be stressed and worry about this and that in this day and age. Moreover, as we grow older we forget to live and drown in all these things that don’t seem to go as planned. But we have a command in Matthew 6: 25-27;
‘Therefore I say to you, do not worry about life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds in the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?’
Surely, there is nothing good that comes out of worrying, we can not add a single hour to our lives by worrying instead we subtract from it. So, to all my fellow “worriers” let us say no to worry, let us simply live. Everything, will all work out if we focus on what could go right and not what could go wrong.
