A committed worrier?

by Lionel Wijesiri

Without worries, my life might be happier, but a lot duller. Take forgetfulness, for instance, an all-purpose worry to be summoned at will, often at moments of contentment. It can add a spice of excitement to the start of a journey. “Have I closed the bathroom window? Have

The bestselling author Lucinda Bassett lists 13 types of worriers. I found the categories rather interesting to read because I belong to the famous “worriers” class. And this list actually made me feel better because, while I checked off all of them, I realised I still have plenty of things to worry about that I hadn’t even thought of!

Being a committed worrier, I perpetually rush around worrying in all directions. Carrying the breakfast plate downstairs I am aware of the danger of a sudden fall and of blinding myself on the shattered fragments of the plate. On the kitchen table, I notice the mail lying unopened upon it. What is this from Inland Revenue? Any tax arrears? Have I settled last year in time? I ask myself. There is hardly a moment left to celebrate winning the battle of the stairs before contemplating the terror of tax default case. Five minutes later, after opening the envelope, I found it was just a routine letter.

Do I enjoy frightening myself a dozen times a day? I must be - after all, been doing so for more than 60 years, preoccupied with a whole A to Z of worries, from Appointments (the client might throw the quotation to my face) to Lifts (shaft might fail and the lift crash down to the ground non-stop) and Zoos (since now wild animals roam freely, one of them might suddenly come chasing after me).

Getting forgetful

Without worries, my life might be happier, but a lot duller. Take forgetfulness, for instance, an all-purpose worry to be summoned at will, often at moments of contentment. It can add a spice of excitement to the start of a journey. “Have I closed the bathroom window? Have I switched off the ceiling fan?”

“Of course it matters,” I tell myself. I phone home, to find the ceiling fan is in order and every window secure including bathroom.

Now the worry is whether I will be allowed on board the plane, because during the journey to the airport I am wondering if I really packed my passport in the suitcase and if so, whether the latter is really in the car trunk. I certainly didn’t notice it sitting in the drive but then someone might have removed it.

To give myself something to do while waiting for a decision about the passport (which turns out not to be in the suitcase but where I put it - in my coat pocket) I begin to count the money needed for cab fare.

“I am really getting very forgetful.” Nobody will contradict me, though clearly nothing of the kind is the case. If it was, I wouldn’t have remembered the bathroom windows.

Worries are like the toys of childhood, most of which we could not bear to discard. Can we learn to play with them more sensibly?

Discipline

Such discipline is difficult. Assume you are driving along the highway, worrying lest you may be late for an important luncheon appointment. The car stalls and you almost but not quite reach the hard shoulder. You then cease to worry about missing luncheon but begin to worry about how long it is going to take to mend the engine and how much it is likely to cost.

As you somehow manage to bring the car to the shoulder, suddenly the car turns over and you fear that you may be incinerated in the wreckage. You have stopped worrying about the repairs. You are worrying about facing death. Nothing catches fire but you suddenly become aware that your leg is trapped and you begin to wonder what life will be like without a leg. All previous worries are immediately banished. When the maintenance crew arrives and you are extricated comparatively intact, you are surprisingly cheerful as they lift you into the ambulance.

Saved by the bell or in these days, the siren, you begin to worry about conditions in the accident ward.

What has saved the day for you is the ability of your worry mechanism to leapfrog the gory details of ad hoc surgery by the roadside and in a time of great stress, reverse the worry load to within bearable limits.

Worry shared

Now that you have discovered that there is another besides yourself who dreads catching a sandal in the jaws of an escalator, and who, driving home after an evening with a few friends anticipates that just before he gets there he will be intercepted and advised to turn back by police. Maybe my home is in flames. Your worry cycle begins. Will you share my anxieties? Of course not. I do not expect any of you, who lie awake at night, puzzling out the sounds caused by the foundations beginning to shift, to worry any the less because we worry alike. A worry shared is not a worry halved. All men and women share very nearly the same imagined worries, and a continuing halving of the load could rapidly lead to its disappearance.

A will is another excellent example of a worry to be enjoyed by the entire family. Care taken over the wording ensures that the document will be almost impossible to fathom in the final draft. Setting the beneficiary’s rights and obligations with vulgar fractions, participatory life interests, reversions and entailment of interest due on the death of a remote cousin who disappeared into Middle East desert many years before, can add enormously to the worry mountain you hope to create among family members. To be a worrier is nothing to be shameful about. It is now proven that this behaviour could be a sign of intelligence.

A batch of youths were surveyed about their mood, anxiety levels and intelligence levels - and those found to worry the most, were also the smartest. The research was carried out at Canada’s Lakehead University.

So, if you, too, are a worrier like me, take comfort!