Almost everyone experiences some form of worry one time or another. It is a part of life. Everyday, we struggle financially, make decisions, and face major changes in life. These things create an inevitable occasional wave of apprehension. Ordinarily, a certain amount of worry is essential for our survival. It helps us to focus on the task and leads us to constructive action. However, when worry goes overboard, instead of being a good friend, reminding us to use good sense, worry suddenly morphs into a bully, making us crazy about things we can't control. Here is a list of reasons why constant worry is not good, if it is at all:
1. Worry is a Complete Waste of Time
Worry changes nothing. We do not accomplish anything or find answers to our questions by worrying. We also cannot add anything to our life by worrying. Worry can only subtract from our lives by causing such infirmities like ulcers or coronary thrombosis. Worry is just muddling away today's time to clutter up tomorrow's opportunities with yesterday's troubles.
2. Worry is Unnecessary
Worry cannot erase the mistakes of the past. It cannot unravel the answers to the future. It cannot make anything better in the present. Hence, there is no need for worry because it is inessential.
3. Worry Contradicts Common Sense
We must learn to live one day at a time. God has given us our lives in units of twenty-four hours and we should take life a day at a time. If we wish to live a long and fruitful life, we should respect and live by the biological clock He has built inside us.
4. Worry is Illogical
Worry is illogical because it is futile, unproductive and pointless. It is faith in the negative, trust in the unpleasant, assurance of disaster and belief in defeat. We do not know what tomorrow may bring, so there is no point in worrying about it. Why look ahead and worry about things that have not yet happened. They may just never happen anyway.
5. Worry Creates the Problem
If we are focused on our fears, we are more likely to crash into them. Thinking about them is a confirmation bias of their existence making them exist even if they are not there.
6. Worry Distracts Our Attention
Worry distracts us from the duties of the present. It grabs our attention from the things of utmost importance. It interferes with our highest functioning and delicious enjoyment of life. Worry is an uninvited guest who spoils all our fun, making our shoulders droop and forehead crease just when we should be feeling triumphant, carefree and filled with hope.
7. Worry Doubles Our Problems
To anticipate future troubles by worrying about them today is to double them. We already have enough troubles today. Today's problems are all we are capable of handling. Worrying for tomorrow, stacks up more problems than we can handle.
8. Worry Diverts our Point of Life
Life is far more important than material things. So often our worries are about relatively unimportant and trivial matters, such as food, drink, clothing, houses and cars. If we seek fulfilment in material things, we are missing the whole point of life. The point of life is the fulfilment of our purpose. Our life purpose is a combination of three things: who we are at the very core, our vision for our self and what we see possible for the world and our values. Instead of working out for our purpose, worry takes us away from the main stream of life completely diverting us from our point of life.
9. Worry is Toxic to our Health
when we worry; every system in our body is affected. Blood clotting increases, blood pressure rises, and the liver produces more cholesterol, all of which raises our risk of heart attack and stroke. Muscle tension gives rise to headaches, back pain, and other body aches. It also triggers an increase in stomach acid and either slow or speed up muscle contractions in our intestines, which can lead to stomach aches, constipation, diarrhoea, gas or heartburn. Worry can also affect our respiratory system by aggravating asthma.
It is a medical fact that worriers die sooner than the non-worriers are. That is because, as Dr. E. Stanley Jones says, "we are not designed to live in fear and worry." To live by worry is against our own nature. That is why worry is so destructive.
10. Worry Affects the People we Love
The Greek word for "worry" is "merimnaw" which literally means "to be drawn in different directions." In logical terms, worry tears us to pieces spiritually, psychologically, physically and even socially. When we are too focused on our worries, we forget about the things that really matters, even the people we care. It is a constant and dominating force that disrupts our lives and disconnects us from others.
We don't have to deny our worries or push them out to the limits because in reality, we can't. It is a part of us. It is our nature. Indeed, worry is good to some extent. It only takes a toll on our lives, when they consume us. If we hang around it day in and day out, it can short circuit our own electrical systems and leave us malfunctioning. We should take control over our worries instead of letting them take control over us. Worries are only in our head, thus it leaves us a choice whether to allow them to propagate or just forget about them. Sometimes, the process of worrying about a problem becomes much bigger than the problem itself. So we often need to learn to deal with worries head on. We should choose to think of the present concerns and decide to do something about them instead of simply worrying on them.
Contributed by: Rachelle Arlin Credo
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To Believe is to Achieve
Do you know the story of the little girl who caught a fever that left her both deaf and blind at the tender age of two? But did she whine or cry at the hand that
Fate had dealt her? Did she live her life in untutored misery untouched by the world? Absolutely not . She learnt sign language. She learnt Braille. She graduated from Radcliffe in 1904. She became a writer and an orator of great repute. Who am I talking about? None other than Hellen Keller. The story of her life is a thumbnail sketch of dogged determination to overcome debilitating handicaps. It is the story of a woman whose desire to achieve a goal overcame even her physical handicaps. Helen Keller made a public success of her private and personal battle with her physical ailments.This glimpse into the life of Helen Keller teaches us a lesson that one can never forget-Desire to achieve a goal can overcome all odds. This is what motivation is all about.
Often the term motivation is thought to be limited to a meaningless word in a treatise of psychology with scant practical implications. But, to my way of thinking, motivation is inextricably woven into the very fabric of our emotional and physical lives. At the risk of sounding like a self-proclaimed preacher, I would insist that success in life is in fact the practical outcome of the desire or need to achieve a goal.Motivation is the measure of any success achieved in life. Success in any endeavour in life, be it a career or be it as mundane as house hunting, requires four elementary steps :
1. Identify a goal and focus on it to the exclusion of everything else.
2. Form an Action Plan. List out the requirements for achievement of such a goal.
3. List out the tools needed for achievement of such a goal.
4. Go for it with complete enthusiasm and determination.
For instance if your goal in life was to become a teacher, this is how you would achieve it.
1. 'I-will-become-a teacher' would be the talisman you would carry around with you all the time .A constant awareness of the goal is essential to any form of achievement.
2. The next step would be to find out the requirements and qualifications to become a teacher.
3. To earn such a qualification you would have to enroll for the necessary courses. Which courses ? What universities? After you have come to a decision in this regard you would have to follow it up with admission applications and necessary financial arrangements. If you cannot afford to quit a job you would just have to find some University running evening/night classes.
4. After the procedural formalities are done you would just have to knuckle down and
Work for your goal. Whenever you are weary and discouraged focus on your goal and chant the 'mantra' of motivation 'I -can-if-I-will'
But inspite of this 'magic motivation' or 'motivation wizardry' some of us might fail at our assigned tasks . Why? This may be for several reasons:
1. We may have more than one goal . This would automatically divide the focus. To take an analogy ,it would be like running two engines with one battery and obviously we are likely to 'run out of steam' a lot faster and so fall short of achieving either goal.
2. It may be that we are ambivalent about our goals. To put it simply we are not sure if it is really worth all the effort. Such reservations at the subconscious level would make our efforts half-hearted and hence the goal unachievable.
3. It may be that the goals we set are beyond are skills or inclination .It could be as mismatched as a seamstress attempting surgery or a tone-deaf attempting to become a musician of great repute. All the motivation in the world would not help in such a case.
4. It may be that we are afraid of failure so we attempt a task at the subconscious level without adequate tools so that on failing we can find an object to blame . This is self-defeating for in doing so we are holding ourselves up for sure defeat.
5. It maybe that we are simply too lazy to make the effort required to achieve a goal.
To simply dream of making it big is not enough. We have to work to achieve success.
To use an analogy we have to sing for our supper.
6. It maybe that our motivation has flagged and let us down.
In case of failure what we need to do is check out the goal, redraw the action plan, checkout on the adequacy of tools and once again get down to the difficult task ahead with equanimity and the power of certainty of success. Success will be ours.
We have here a ready-made recipe for success. Take one cup of desire for achievement. Add a cup of dogged determination. Sprinkle it liberally with human endeavour. Bake it in the fire of human intractability and steadfastness. Let it cool in the stream of objective evaluation. Then ice it over with -- 'to believe is to achieve'.
Sweet is the taste of success.
Contributed by: Najib
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Fate had dealt her? Did she live her life in untutored misery untouched by the world? Absolutely not . She learnt sign language. She learnt Braille. She graduated from Radcliffe in 1904. She became a writer and an orator of great repute. Who am I talking about? None other than Hellen Keller. The story of her life is a thumbnail sketch of dogged determination to overcome debilitating handicaps. It is the story of a woman whose desire to achieve a goal overcame even her physical handicaps. Helen Keller made a public success of her private and personal battle with her physical ailments.This glimpse into the life of Helen Keller teaches us a lesson that one can never forget-Desire to achieve a goal can overcome all odds. This is what motivation is all about.
Often the term motivation is thought to be limited to a meaningless word in a treatise of psychology with scant practical implications. But, to my way of thinking, motivation is inextricably woven into the very fabric of our emotional and physical lives. At the risk of sounding like a self-proclaimed preacher, I would insist that success in life is in fact the practical outcome of the desire or need to achieve a goal.Motivation is the measure of any success achieved in life. Success in any endeavour in life, be it a career or be it as mundane as house hunting, requires four elementary steps :
1. Identify a goal and focus on it to the exclusion of everything else.
2. Form an Action Plan. List out the requirements for achievement of such a goal.
3. List out the tools needed for achievement of such a goal.
4. Go for it with complete enthusiasm and determination.
For instance if your goal in life was to become a teacher, this is how you would achieve it.
1. 'I-will-become-a teacher' would be the talisman you would carry around with you all the time .A constant awareness of the goal is essential to any form of achievement.
2. The next step would be to find out the requirements and qualifications to become a teacher.
3. To earn such a qualification you would have to enroll for the necessary courses. Which courses ? What universities? After you have come to a decision in this regard you would have to follow it up with admission applications and necessary financial arrangements. If you cannot afford to quit a job you would just have to find some University running evening/night classes.
4. After the procedural formalities are done you would just have to knuckle down and
Work for your goal. Whenever you are weary and discouraged focus on your goal and chant the 'mantra' of motivation 'I -can-if-I-will'
But inspite of this 'magic motivation' or 'motivation wizardry' some of us might fail at our assigned tasks . Why? This may be for several reasons:
1. We may have more than one goal . This would automatically divide the focus. To take an analogy ,it would be like running two engines with one battery and obviously we are likely to 'run out of steam' a lot faster and so fall short of achieving either goal.
2. It may be that we are ambivalent about our goals. To put it simply we are not sure if it is really worth all the effort. Such reservations at the subconscious level would make our efforts half-hearted and hence the goal unachievable.
3. It may be that the goals we set are beyond are skills or inclination .It could be as mismatched as a seamstress attempting surgery or a tone-deaf attempting to become a musician of great repute. All the motivation in the world would not help in such a case.
4. It may be that we are afraid of failure so we attempt a task at the subconscious level without adequate tools so that on failing we can find an object to blame . This is self-defeating for in doing so we are holding ourselves up for sure defeat.
5. It maybe that we are simply too lazy to make the effort required to achieve a goal.
To simply dream of making it big is not enough. We have to work to achieve success.
To use an analogy we have to sing for our supper.
6. It maybe that our motivation has flagged and let us down.
In case of failure what we need to do is check out the goal, redraw the action plan, checkout on the adequacy of tools and once again get down to the difficult task ahead with equanimity and the power of certainty of success. Success will be ours.
We have here a ready-made recipe for success. Take one cup of desire for achievement. Add a cup of dogged determination. Sprinkle it liberally with human endeavour. Bake it in the fire of human intractability and steadfastness. Let it cool in the stream of objective evaluation. Then ice it over with -- 'to believe is to achieve'.
Sweet is the taste of success.
Contributed by: Najib
Send in your articles for free publication
Nobody owns theTruth and nobody can control the Truth
I've been brought up with principles of Christianity as the only thing to be adhered to. Any other kind would have to be in accordance with them. When you're young, you don't have anything to oppose something in favour of because you only know what you're told and you only have people around you who would tell you the same. When you're big enough to make sense of things, it's the only thing you find yourself able to make sense of.
Maybe that shows how crazy the world can get. What you understand is only that what has been driven into your head. That could be crazy but it's the only thing you can understand the world through. Everybody's got to have atleast some sense made out of the world otherwise they would end up in an identity crisis-which they all recognize and try to avoid lest they end up being in one. Being forced in upon such decisions that make your perception of the world, what it has to offer and what you think it needs can bring about certain choices of what you choose to believe in, what you don't, what your life will be made of and what it wont.
But there's so much more of the world to see, a lot that can change what you will eventually turn out to be. I don't mean to blaspheme but I've really lost my stand. When I'm down in the dirt, that's when it can hurt that what I chose to believe in has let me down. That could only mean that it isn't worth it and that I've got to find myself some new ground.
I can stay holed up in my cell. I can say that all is well (that there are too many fools for me to be wise). I can look for options that I can use. I can scout around for choices that I can choose from that can show me the more sense that I am looking for out of this life- but I'm looking for what's absolute. I'm looking for the truth that's so complete that no point of view can change the way you see it. No opinion can change its impression on you.
I've brought myself to understand that the truth wouldn't have to be called the truth at all if there wasn't anything opposing it. It would be only thing that ever made sense. If it works, it's got to work right down in the bottom of all that opposes it. I'm heading there. I hope both worlds level because both the worlds are looking for the same thing- they only need different things out of it. One world makes it harder in superiority- the other shuns it all in pride. NOBODY OWNS THE TRUTH. NO ONE CONTROLS IT. One is just lucky to know it earlier than the other.
Contributed by:Sunil Noronha
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Maybe that shows how crazy the world can get. What you understand is only that what has been driven into your head. That could be crazy but it's the only thing you can understand the world through. Everybody's got to have atleast some sense made out of the world otherwise they would end up in an identity crisis-which they all recognize and try to avoid lest they end up being in one. Being forced in upon such decisions that make your perception of the world, what it has to offer and what you think it needs can bring about certain choices of what you choose to believe in, what you don't, what your life will be made of and what it wont.
But there's so much more of the world to see, a lot that can change what you will eventually turn out to be. I don't mean to blaspheme but I've really lost my stand. When I'm down in the dirt, that's when it can hurt that what I chose to believe in has let me down. That could only mean that it isn't worth it and that I've got to find myself some new ground.
I can stay holed up in my cell. I can say that all is well (that there are too many fools for me to be wise). I can look for options that I can use. I can scout around for choices that I can choose from that can show me the more sense that I am looking for out of this life- but I'm looking for what's absolute. I'm looking for the truth that's so complete that no point of view can change the way you see it. No opinion can change its impression on you.
I've brought myself to understand that the truth wouldn't have to be called the truth at all if there wasn't anything opposing it. It would be only thing that ever made sense. If it works, it's got to work right down in the bottom of all that opposes it. I'm heading there. I hope both worlds level because both the worlds are looking for the same thing- they only need different things out of it. One world makes it harder in superiority- the other shuns it all in pride. NOBODY OWNS THE TRUTH. NO ONE CONTROLS IT. One is just lucky to know it earlier than the other.
Contributed by:Sunil Noronha
Send in your articles for free publication
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