Friday, April 26, 2024
Today's Gift from Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation is:
Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow; it only saps today of its strength.
-- A. J. Cronin
Many adult children are expert worriers. No topic is so small that we can't blow it up into something big. The merest hint of an ill wind can trip the hair-trigger mechanism that gets us going. It takes years to develop such a reflex. Originally, we may have legitimately worried that what we loved would be taken from us or never be given to us in the first place.
But worry can become a way of life -- we may not know how to live any other way. In the grips of this delusion, we might assume that if we don't worry about something, it will happen for sure. As if worry had the power to ward off tragedy! We might as well wear garlic around our necks to repel evil spirits.
As opposed to cautious realism, chronic worry is indiscriminate and irrational. We don't worry about disasters because they're so likely to happen -- we worry because that's what we know how to do. Worry doesn't prevent the loss of anything except our own peace of mind.
I recognize that habitual worry is a learned response from long ago. Today, I choose serenity.
Hazelden Foundation
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