Let me tell you a story.
There’s this girl—we’ll call her Val. And she works for this guy—we’ll call him Mark. Mark and Val are working on this project—we’ll call it project.
Mark is what you’d call a macro manager. He doesn’t like to get down to the details—that’s what he hired Val for.
See, a few days ago, Val was working on some time-sensitive tasks, and she wanted—no, needed—Mark’s feedback on something.
The thing is though, Val and Mark are in different timezones. So by the time Mark would see Val’s message asking for feedback, Val would be in bedland.
So Val, thinking this is the best possible way forward, asks Mark in this message she carefully wrote (and revised five times) to give his feedback directly to the person Val’s supposed to be relaying Mark’s feedback to, because they’re in the same timezone and they need his feedback today.
Val closes up her laptop, puts her foot up, goes and enjoys some good old Hollywood Classics on TV after a long hard day.
Midway into Monster, she realises: Shit, I just told my boss to do something by a deadline (TODAY!). Did I just micro-manage him? Is this going to piss him off? After all, he did say explicitly before that he doesn’t want to get involved in the details, and in the light of a few hours’ perspective, this task solidly falls into the category of the weeds.
Shit. Fuck.
Fuck fuck.
As Charlize Theron descends into [spoiler alert] on the screen, Val’s mind races in a downward-spiraling circle, each thought more horrid than the last. He’s going to get annoyed. He’s going to think I’m giving him more work rather than taking work off his plate. This is going to overshadow all the other great work that I’m doing. He’s not going to like me anymore. ANDOMIGODWILLHEFIREME.
The Val in the story desperately tries to tell herself, “It’s all in my head. I don’t know what Mark’s thinking. He’s probably way too busy with other things to pay attention to my potential-micro-manage-my-boss fiasco of a message. He probably won’t care. He may just ignore it anyways. I should be in the present and enjoy this movie. See? Charlize is [spoiler alert] and I should be giving her my full attention.”
Needless to mention, that Val is me. (Surprise!)
Also needless to mention (but I’m going to mention it anyways), my mind continued to race for the better part of an hour as I continuously failed to redirect my attention towards the movie, away from those two lines on Slack that I’d sent to my boss hours earlier.
I ended up checking Slack late that night to see if Mark had responded and if he indeed was pissed off.1 But he hadn’t responded.2
Don’t Worry About It
“Don’t worry.”
These are probably the two3 words most frequently uttered as advice. They’re doled out like a panacea in all sorts of scenarios: Big presentation coming up? Check. About to get your tooth pulled out? Check. Girlfriend hasn’t texted back? Check. A comet might hit the earth and destroy everyone in it? Check.
It’s an advice that both makes perfect sense and is infinitely exasperating to hear.
Not worrying is probably the best thing we could do in most situations. There’s no point worrying whether our partner will be angry that we’re late to our anniversary dinner. We’re already late. They’ll either be angry or they won’t. It’s out of our hands. There’s nothing we can do. Worrying serves no purpose. We should just haul ass.
Yet at the same time, we hate hearing this advice because it’s so fucking hard to implement. We may know full well it’s pointless to worry, but hey, we worry anyways. In the absence of facts, our minds invent ever-worsening scenarios to fill in the gaps. And so we worry.
We tell ourselves not to worry. But we all do.
Do Something About It
Earlier this year, I had an epiphany about worry: Worrying can serve a purpose.
Worrying can be useful if it causes us to change our behavior to effect a better outcome.
If we worry about not getting our work done by the deadline, then that worry should motivate/cajole/force us to allocate a bit more time to work, to focus more, maybe get help.
In this case, the worry motivates action that ameliorates the situation, and in the process also eliminates the worry.
If we worry that our partner will be angry if we’re late to the anniversary dinner and we’re still in the position to alter our actions in order to not be late, then that worry can cause us to not be late, which is good.
Worry can be extremely useful if we take it as a signal to change our course of action to reach a better outcome.
So maybe the advice shouldn’t be: “Don’t worry.”
It should be:
“You’re worried? Good. What can you do about it?”
This way, worry goes from a meaningless endeavour that prevents us from enjoying Charlize Theron’s excellent acting as she [spoiler alert], and it becomes a catalyst for fruitful action.
I know, I was pretty proud of myself for having this epiphany.4
Are you a fellow worrier? Or do you ace not worrying? Does worry paralyse or stimulate you? Are you worried that you’re taking too much time to read this silly newsletter and you should unsubscribe but then Val might be angry at you because she’ll take it as a sign of rejection?5
Leave a comment, send a reply, share this with a friend who worries too much.
Until next Friday… Stay cool, stay safe, stay thoughtful,
Val
Checking Slack late at night used to be a habit. But I’ve broken out of it unless there’s something like message-gate going on.
He still hasn’t responded as I’m writing this post. But by now I’ve let the person know to proceed with the work so I’ve amended the message to be an FYI rather than “GIVE YOUR FEEDBACK TODAY!” I breathe much more easily now.
Technically three
But maybe you already knew this and I’m not telling you anything new, in which case… I’m glad I caught up with y’all.
I won’t. We’re cool.
Val, this article made my day :)
You know, I'm an overly anxious dude that overthinks about ALMOST, if not EVERYTHING.
Most of the time, my thoughts just fucked my mind up than the actual problems.
Everyone always tells me in Thai "Yah kid mak." which is "Don't worry".
But it always turned out that I hate this sentence so DAMN much!
And yes, as wise Val suggested..
Rather than saying "Don't worry."
Say this : “You’re worried? Good. What can you do about it?” instead !
In Thai as "Er gu kid mak, laew gu tam ngai tor?"
Thanks Thanks Thanks oh friggin' THANKS Val <3