Original Post

Okay, I’ll admit it - I’m a bit of a worrier.

Meditation has made a massive difference to the intensity and duration of my worrying, and age and experience have helped me realise that some things are important, and others are just not.

I do still worry, and I’m sure I always will, especially about the things that I care about deeply, but this quote reminds me that we cannot change the past and we cannot control the future - all we can do is choose how we deal with the challenges that life sends our way…

Further Thoughts

I can’t overstate the positive impact that both meditation and experience have had over my worrying, but I also think that leaving the corporate world behind had a fundamental impact too. 

Back in my old role, my responsibilities weighed very heavy, and I spent my days worrying, anticipating problems, and trying to control outcomes - and when you do that for long-enough, it can sometimes be very difficult to maintain perspective.

Arguably my worries should be bigger now that I run my own business (decisions can be much more make-or-break without the corporate structure to ‘protect’ you), but I actually find that they are easier to mange, probably for the reasons highlighted so beautifully in the quote - if I can fix it, there’s no need to worry, and if I can’t, I might as well just carry on with something else that I can do.

I suppose I’m lucky that my worrying never took a bigger toll (although it came close once or twice), but with the benefit of hindsight, the things I REALLY worried about never came true; whether my worrying helped me to prevent them, or they were never going to happen anyway I’ll never know, but I do know that they wasted way too much time and energy to be worth it…