“Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?”
–The Holy Bible (Matthew 6:27)
Introduction
It might sound weird. But it is true that many people simply love their worries. Dr. John Schindler, a US Physician, narrates the story of his friend Sam to demonstrate it. Sam had a beautiful oats farm. “I drove past his farm one summer day and I thought to myself, “Those oats ought to make Sam happy.” So I drove in and said, “Sam that is a wonderful field of oats,” and Sam said, “Yes, but the wind will blow it down before I get it cut.” He got it cut all right and got it threshed, and got a good price for it. Well, I saw him one day and I said, “Sam, how did the oats turn out?” And he said, “Oh, it was a good crop, and I guess the price was alright, but you know a crop like that sure takes a lot out of the soil.”” The good doctor says that people like Sam would invariably get a psychosomatic illness. He adds, “…when they get it, they get it hard. As a rule, they are invalids for the rest of their lives. There is nothing you can do about it.”
In a previous post, I had discussed how the state of our minds determines the state of our bodies (‘Alert! Your Mind Might Murder You’). The emphasis of that post was on how mental stress causes bodily ailments that modern medical science calls ‘Psychosomatic Illnesses’. However, the mind-body connection is not something that modern medical science has discovered. For centuries before the first glimmerings of modern science, many medical practitioners and thinkers across nations had acknowledged the reality of this connection. Even Hippocrates (circa 460-377 BCE), the Greek medical practitioner who is regarded as the father of medicine, had believed that a calm mind is an essential requirement for a healthy body. All religious philosophies have peace of mind as one of its predominant focuses. Yet, people continue to live with the burden of their stress-torn hearts.
The question is why people fall victims to stress, in spite of the increasing awareness of its evil consequences. The fundamental issue seems to be that man is a worrying animal by nature. This post discusses five predominant emotional tendencies that make people increasingly miserable in their lives.
1. Fear
There is this story of a fruit merchant of New York City. He regularly ordered ten to fifteen wagon-loads of Florida oranges for the NYC market. From the moment the cargo reached the railway warehouse at Florida, the merchant would come under the grip of tensions. He would start imagining some disaster striking his consignment. For instance, he would fear that the train would crash on its way to NYC or that one of those creaky railway bridges would collapse plunging his fruit wagons into swirling waters. He had visions of the wagons bursting open, spilling his oranges all over the countryside. He even feared that the railways would misdirect his consignments and his oranges would be spoiled before it finally arrived at NYC…
Eventually his fears started showing on his body. It began with serious digestive system troubles. He feared the worst and believed that he was going to die. As his condition worsened, he went to a hospital. The specialists examined him and ran a series of tests. They could find nothing wrong with the state of his health. The man then opened his heart to his doctor. He told the doctor about his business related fears. The doctor listened and finally told him that if he wished to live, he had to understand the futility of his fears.
The man went home and thought over the logic of his fears. He picked up the business records of his orange consignments. He found that, out of the 25,000 wagon-loads transported in the past, just five had actually failed to arrive. It meant that, the probability of non-delivery of his consignments was just one out of five thousand (1/5000). There was hardly any statistical probability of the calamities he feared actually striking his consignment. Besides, all the consignments had comprehensive insurance coverage. Even in the unlikely event of any loss of his goods while in transit, the insurance company would have covered it. Finally, the man was convinced of the foolishness of his fears.
We have a habit of imagining all kinds of disasters waiting to strike and annihilate us. However empirical evidence is more in line with what the French philosopher Montague had said. “My life has been full of terrible misfortunes, most of which never happened.” This is more or less the reality about the disasters most of us fear.
2. Ignorance
Our concerns cover a lot of things. For example, I am seriously concerned about the holes in the ozone layer, the melting of the Polar Ice, the damages to Amazon forests, atomic bombs, global warming, terrorism, tornadoes and torrential rains…. I am also concerned about the leaking faucet in my home, my sick parent in the hospital, the flat tire of my car, a problem child at my home and a career interview tomorrow. Isn’t there a difference between these two sets of my concerns?
In his international best seller ‘The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People’, Stephen Covey speaks of the ‘Circle of Concern’. Both the holes in the ozone layer and the leaking faucet in my home are items that fall within my ‘Circle of Concern’. However, I must know that irrespective of the intensity of my concerns, I can do nothing about the holes in the ozone layer or a fuming volcano that might erupt any moment. But, it is within my power to get someone to fix the leaking faucet or to move my sick parent to another hospital for better care. In other words, while I am seriously concerned about a whole lot of things, I have influence only over very few out of it. Stephen Covey calls these items as my ‘Circle of Influence’. A smaller concentric circle within my ‘Circle of Concern’ describes my ‘Circle of Influence’ (See diagram).
It would be foolish if we fail to recognize this distinction between Circle of Concern and Circle of Influence. We have NO control over most of the things happening in our lives and around it. What it boils down to is that that whether we worry or not, whatever is bound to happen, would invariably happen. Then why worry?
It is wise to understand our limitations and keep our focus on items within our circle of influence. In due course, our circle of influence would change depending upon the level of care and efficiency with which we deal with the matters falling within it. (A detailed discussion on this is out of the scope of this post). Of course, none would stop you from embarking up on a mission to stop the volcano from erupting. You are sure to end up with a more onerous heart. (You might also end up with your problem kid burning down your house or your spouse filing a divorce petition!)
I reproduce below a prayer by Dr. Reinhold Niebuhr that I came across, which beautifully captures the essence of what I have discussed.
“God grant me the serenity,
To accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference.”
Stop tilting at windmills. It is simply foolish. It also hurts in several ways.
3. Negativism
There is more than one dimension to negative attitudes. What we have seen in the beginning in the owner of the oats farm is one kind of negativism. Sam had every reason to be happy about his bumper crop. However, at every turn, Sam was finding something negative and discouraging about his oats. When the fields yielded abundantly, his thoughts were on the wind destroying the oats before it could be cut. When he reaped it with no damages to the oats, he thought the harvest would not fetch a good price since all farmers had bumper crops and the market would be flooded with oats. When he got a good price, his thoughts turned to a bad crop next season…
People obsessed with negative thoughts cannot see the abundance of their good fortunes. They are always looking for imaginary evils hiding behind the blessings they have. Such people obviously end up perpetually miserable.
Another dimension of negativity is our response to calamities in life. At one time or the other, a variety of catastrophes strikes each one of us. Most of these are simply inevitable. The way we respond to calamities would have serious implications for the rest of our lives. You could blame fate for singling you out for severe afflictions and live the rest of your life with a heart weighed down by emotions of sorrow and frustration. Conversely, you could accept the adversities as the inevitable part the vicissitudes of life. You could refuse to be ruined by it.
Sarah Bernhardt (1844 – 1923), the French stage actress was the reigning queen on the theater on four continents, for fifty long years. She was referred to as “the most famous actress the world has ever known”, and was regarded as one of the finest actors of all time. She was nick named “Divine Sarah”. Tragedy suddenly struck her life at the peak of her career.
On a ship journey across the Atlantic, she fell down on the deck and broke her leg. The injury developed complications. Her surgeons eventually decided to amputate the injured leg. The surgery was a tough decision. But it was tougher to break it to Sarah. Or so her surgeons thought. They expected her to throw a fit on hearing the terrible news. However, Sarah kept her cool. She looked at her surgeon and said quietly “If it has to be, it has to be”.
As the hospital staff wheeled her into the operating theater, she saw her son standing there with tears rolling down his cheeks. She summoned him closer and told him “Do not go away; I will be right back”. She kept her promise. She recovered and went on touring the world to enchant her audiences for another seven years.
Every life has its share of misfortunes. A bad patch in life is not the end of the world.Many who encountered far worse crises in their lives have faced it with equanimity to come out of it stronger and bereft of emotional scars. However, many others who tried to counter the inevitable emotionally have ended up miserably. So, it might be wiser to cooperate with the inevitable.
4. Resentment
Jesus said, “I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Mathew 5:44). People who heard him thought that Jesus was on the side of their enemies. But this advice is not only good Gospel but also good medicine. Our resentments against our enemies would cause no harm to our enemies. However, the negative emotions of ire and hate we harbor in our hearts could play havoc with our own lives. According to Life Magazine, “The chief personality characteristic of a person with hypertension is resentment. When resentment is chronic, chronic hypertension and heart trouble follow.”
By filling our hearts with evil thoughts about our enemies, we are granting them the power over our sleep, our happiness, our appetite, our blood pressure and our cardiac condition. Our enemies would be exhilarated if they knew how we are tormenting ourselves thinking of them. Resentment can make life hellish. We have to decide whether we should let our enemies have the power to keep us in an utterly miserable state of mind, to damage our health and shorten our lives. Anger and resentment might even kill instantly.
A sixty-eight year old man owned a café in Washington. His cook had a habit of drinking his coffee out of a saucer. (The guy probably hailed from India!) The café owner hated this habit of his cook. On several occasions, the man admonished his cook against it. For a while, he seemed to have given it up. Then one day, the café owner caught him drinking coffee once again from the saucer. He flew into a rage, grabbed his revolver and chased the cook. The cook ran for dear life. However, that was unnecessary. A moment later, the angry old man fell down dead. The postmortem report said that the man died of a heart failure triggered by anger.
Resentment is injurious to your looks too. Anger and hate could crease and shrivel up your face to make it look hard and ugly. Forgiveness, tenderness and love could give you a facelift that no plastic surgeon has the skill to achieve. So, pause for a moment before you pick up your next piece of ‘Fair and Lovely’ or ‘Nivea’. You could avoid burning holes in your pocket by just wiping out all traces of resentment from your heart. If we cannot love our enemies, let us at least forgive them and forget them. As Dwight D. Eisenhower said, “Never waste a minute thinking about people you don’t like.”
5. Greed
In an article entitled, ‘The Butterfly Effect’ by Tanis Hellivell, that I had read over a decade ago in ‘Sunday Times’, the author says, “There are four cycles that the butterfly undergoes in its transformation from egg to caterpillar to cocoon before finding its final grace and beauty as a butterfly. These stages are ones that we also undergo in our journey from unconsciousness dominated by the personality to consciousness partnered by the soul.”
My interest in this post is limited to the Caterpillar stage. About this stage, the author says, “Our world and organizations have been run by caterpillars… People in the caterpillar stage of transformation, step over others in their path in order to reach their ego-centered goals. They want to have the most money and the best that money can buy and have little conscience as to how the needs of others are met…”
The nature of caterpillar is true not only in the case of people running the world and its giant corporations. It is equally true at the level of the individual. We live in a world driven by avarice. It is a rat race – a perpetual run for more and more of everything. As I recently read on the Facebook, we do not use at least 70% of the features of our expensive smartphones, 70% of the space in our luxury homes, 70% of the speed of our expensive cars, 70% of the costly garments in our wardrobes and 70% of the money we make. Yet, we never find contentment. We continue to hunger after bigger homes, more garments, faster cars and smarter phones. Of course, we also continue to skip meals, forsake families, cheat on taxes, borrow not to repay, launder money, and swindle all and sundry with relish to make still more money. But we ignore the reality that the price we pay, for this haste and hurry to grab the most and make everything our own, is very heavy. It might be a miserable life of discontentment to start with. Then it might be ill health. And premature death might top it all.
Conclusion
Many readers might say that there is nothing original about what I have written here. They are right. I might have picked up these thoughts from diverse sources. However, beyond that, I have actually been a victim of my worries. While I do not wish to go into the details here, I have learned the hard way that it is disastrously injurious to live with a tense heart. I now know that most of the things about which I had been nervous in my life had never happened. In fact, I never realized the improbability of my fears coming true. I now know that I have been a fool. However, for me, wisdom dawned too late. Perhaps, for you reader, there is still time to think over and change.
I now know my limitations. I know that I cannot stop the earth from spinning on its imaginary axle. I cannot alter its momentum or its movements. The sun would continue to set in the west to bring in the night. It would continue to rise in the east to usher in a new day. The heavenly bodies would continue on its course. Seasons would come, seasons would go and dead seasons would return.
The universe does not care whether I live or die. It would not care whether I am happy or sad. But I care. I care that I do not live here forever. I care that I pass through this world only once (at least in the shape and size in which I am in the current life). I care that my anxieties hurt me. I care that my anxieties do not affect anyone else. I care that it is only wise for me to realize the futility of my anxieties. I care that I can change nothing, except ruining my own life, by worrying… Never worry about apocalypse. Ignore all the prophets of doom and the ‘pious’ men predicting the year and day of the end of the world. If the world has to end, it has to end. Period. Man is too insignificant a being in the scheme of the universe. Don’t be a fool to embark up on a mission to stop Armageddon. Take care of your family, your health, your job, your relationships… Life is tough. It is a challenge. But remember death is the only exit gate out of life. So get rid of your worries. Be happy. It is just a short life.
The universe does not care whether I live or die. It would not care whether I am happy or sad. But I care. I care that I do not live here forever. I care that I pass through this world only once (at least in the shape and size in which I am in the current life). I care that my anxieties hurt me. I care that my anxieties do not affect anyone else. I care that it is only wise for me to realize the futility of my anxieties. I care that I can change nothing, except ruining my own life, by worrying… Never worry about apocalypse. Ignore all the prophets of doom and the ‘pious’ men predicting the year and day of the end of the world. If the world has to end, it has to end. Period. Man is too insignificant a being in the scheme of the universe. Don’t be a fool to embark up on a mission to stop Armageddon. Take care of your family, your health, your job, your relationships… Life is tough. It is a challenge. But remember death is the only exit gate out of life. So get rid of your worries. Be happy. It is just a short life.
Never worry about death. Keep in mind that none of the seven billion or so people now living on Earth would be alive a hundred years from now. Billions have died in the past. Thousands are dying each minute. And thousands are born each minute only to die. So death is just part of the universal routine. There is nothing magical or magnificent about death. Magic and magnificence is in life. So value your life. It is wonderful. It is precious.
Never worry about burning in hell. Hell would be the only place where we would meet humans in their afterlife (if there be one). The world has always been sinful. Therefore, the dead should all be in hell – the place prepared for the sinners. In the unlikely event of your landing in heaven, you would spent a lonely life among the legions and legions of angels and archangels. Does it sound inviting? For me, it does not…
Finally, never worry about tomorrow for, “Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday”.
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"never worry about burning in the hell"-but i think we should be cautious to attain salvation. i am not so a pious person, but wanted to express my view.
Dear Anonymous,
I thank you for 'expressing your view'. I have not imposed any restrictions on the freedom of readers to express their views, as long as they refrain from using abusive and impolite language. What I write is my view as I understand it now. It is not necessary that it is the only view or even the right view. Our views keep changing as we know more and more.
Turning to your comment: Let me confess that I do not believe that a loving and compassionate God as preached by Jesus would let me burn forever in hell. In fact, I have serious reservations about the existence of hell and heaven as physical realities. (Read my post 'Heaven, Hell and the Doctrine of Karma'). Right here on this earth, some people are already in hell and some in heaven. A stressful heart is hell. A heart filled with love and peace is heaven. The rest is all matters of faith. I refuse to lose my sleep over it when I am already enjoying heaven here….
Think over it…
Regards,
vgkutty
Sir, don't be proud that you are in heaven and be sympathetic and kind to those who have a stressful heart- my humble request.
@Anonymous
Perhaps, even God is helpless when it comes to people who have fallen in love with their hell.
Has anything changed in your life (except for the worse) by living in hell by choosing to carry the burden of a stressful heart?
Thanks.