Kiki (our cat) is sitting on the porch, theres a beautiful bounced sunlight hitting her chin and a gentle breeze is blowing through her fur. For the next 20 mins or so the world will still be beautiful and hopefully non-disastrous, maybe for the next 20 hours, maybe for the next 20 days - I don’t know.
But knowing that 'X' is happening in the world, should I be worried?
(X= name your poison)
I came across the book 'What Should We Be Worried About?' that asks some of the brightest minds in the world about their worries. I marveled at the idea of the book itself! Everyone is always worried about something and can write volumes about it. One of my favorite authors Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi seemed to eventually decide randomly on one worry since there were so many.
'I tried to rank my fears in order of their severity, but soon I realized I would not complete this initial task before the submission deadline, so I decided to use a random number generator to choose among the fears.' - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
But isn't worrying itself a worry? That we know so much, that we care so much and that we want so much to go in the ‘right’ way?
Kiki played with a broken leaf while enjoying the sun's warmth. The sun has been making its way on and off today through the clouds. The breeze continues to animate the leaves all around the house. Sunlight dances through the window and the gaps of the roof. Will life have disasters ahead, unhappiness, trauma, sadness, pain? I don't know.
But I know that, worrying will take me from here to there. A there that doesn't exist yet and might not exist at all. And in this beautiful painting of today, I would have smeared the black paint of my worries that only signifies the unknown, no matter what shape I try to find in it.
And from the same book I read:
I've given up worrying. I merely float on a tsunami of acceptance of anything life throws at me....and marvel stupidly. - Terry Gilliam
c. 1300, wirien, "to slay, kill or injure by biting and shaking the throat" (as a dog or wolf does), from Old English wyrgan "to strangle,"
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