Worry

thoughts, images, emotions, and actions of a negative nature in a repetitive, uncontrollable manner that results from a proactive cognitive risk analysis made to avoid or solve anticipated potential threats and their potential consequences

Worry is one of two components of anxiety (the other being emotionality). Worry refers to negative self-talk that often detracts the mind from focusing on the problem at hand. Emotionality refers to physiological symptoms such as sweating, increased heart beat and raised blood pressure.

What, Me Worry? ~ William Gaines
In every life, we have some trouble. But? When you worry, you make it double. Don't worry, be happy. ~ Bobby McFerrin
If you can solve your problem, then what is the need of worrying? If you cannot solve it, then what is the use of worrying? ~ Shantideva

Quotes

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  • 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 (George H. Powell), 1st World War song: Pack up Your troubles in Your Old Kit-bag.
  • My mistake has too often been that of too much haste. But it is not the people’s way to hurry, nor is it God’s way either. Hurry means worry, and worry effectually drives the peace of God from the heart.
    • James O. Fraser, Geraldine Taylor. Behind the Ranges: The Life-changing Story of J.O. Fraser. Singapore: OMF International (IHQ) Ltd., 1998, 189.
  • “You're worried, aren't you?” he said.
    “Again, you have chosen a word not large enough to cover more than the barest fraction of the situation.”
  • Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your 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? 25
    Look at the birds of 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? 26
    Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?
    • Matthew Ch. 6, New King James version
  • So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; 28
    and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 29
    Now if God so clothes the grass of the field... will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?
    • Matthew Ch. 6, New King James version
  • Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 31
    For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.32
    But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. 33
    Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. 34
    • Matthew Ch. 6, New King James version
  • It’s a jungle out there
    Poison in the very air we breathe
    Do you know what’s in the water that you drink?
    Well I do, and it’s amazing
    People think I’m crazy, ’cause I worry all the time
    If you paid attention, you’d be worried too
    You better pay attention
    Or this world we love so much might just kill you
    I could be wrong now, but I don’t think so!
  • When this flood blocks the road
    I am worried more
    by my soil getting washed,
    than by getting late
    to reach my destination.
  • If you can solve your problem, then what is the need of worrying? If you cannot solve it, then what is the use of worrying?
    • Shantideva, Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life
  • “You would advise us not to worry?”
    “Oh, worry by all means,” said Windlow. “By all means. Yes. It sharpens the wits. A good worry does wonders for the defensive capabilities of the brain. However, I should not advise you to do without sleep.”
  • When someone goes to the doctor and says, "I hear a voice in my head," he or she will most likely be sent to a psychiatrist. The fact is that, in a very similar way, virtually everyone hears a voice, or several voices, in their head all the time: the involuntary thought processes that you don't realize you have the power to stop... The voice comments, speculates, judges, compares, complains, likes, dislikes, and so on. The voice isn't necessarily relevant to the situation you find yourself in at the time; it may be reviving the recent or distant past or rehearsing or imagining possible future situations. Here it often imagines things going wrong and negative outcomes; this is called worry. p. 16 ...When you listen to a thought, you are aware not only of the thought but also of yourself as the witness of the thought. A new dimension of consciousness has come in. p. 17

Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895)

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Quotes reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895).
  • Anxious care rests upon a basis of heathen worldly-mindedness and of heathen misunderstanding of the character of God.
  • Despatch necessities; life hath a load
    Which must be carried on — and safely may;
    Yet keep these cares without thee; let the heart
    Be God's alone; and choose the better part.
  • He that taketh his own cares upon himself loads himself in vain with an uneasy burden. I will cast all my cares on God; He hath bidden me; they cannot burden Him.
  • He who climbs above the cares of this world, and turns his face to his God, has found the sunny side of life. The world's side of the hill is chill and freezing to a spiritual mind; but the Lord's presence gives a warmth of joy which turns winter into summer.
  • I met a brother who, describing a friend of his, said he was like a man who had dropped a bottle, and broken it, and put all the pieces in his bosom, where they were cutting him perpetually.
  • Why art thou troubled and anxious about many things? One thing is needful — to love Him and to sit attentively at His feet.
  • I have no cares, O blessed Will!
    For all my cares are Thine;
    I live in triumph, Lord, for Thou
    Hast made Thy triumph mine.
  • Most men call fretting a minor fault, a foible, and not a vice. There is no vice except drunkenness which can so utterly destroy the peace, the happiness of a home.
    • Mrs. H. F. Jackson, p. 254.
  • However nervous, depressed, and despairing may be the tone of any one, the Lord leaves. him no excuse for fretting; for there is enough in God's promise to overbalance all these natural difficulties. In the measure in which the Christian enjoys his privileges, rises above the things that are seen, hides himself in the refuge provided for him, will he be able to voice the confession of Paul, and say, "None of these things move me."
    • S. H. Tyng, Jr., p. 254.

Proverbs

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  • Worry is interest paid on trouble before it falls due.
    • Variously attributed to Dean Inge and John Garland Pollard in the 1930s, this aphorism was already in general circulation decades earlier, e.g., it features in an advertisement in The Grape Belt, 2 October 1906, p. 5.
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