Can Worry Be A Good Thing?
My family worries. We hate it, but we worry. My Dad was one of the most solid men I have ever known. He did what he said he would do and he was always there for us. But he had an occasional way with worry that was way beyond the norm. The schemes and conspiracies he sometimes cooked up were…elaborate.
Some of my favorite scriptures are the ones about worry. The writers attack it with a vengeance, no poetry or soft-soaping. Just do not do it. It will kill you. Run the other way as fast as you can. “Worry about nothing and pray about everything and the peace that passes all understanding will flood your heart and mind.”
We’ve probably all experienced that form of anxiousness that consumes you and makes it hard to do anything else. You just want stay in bed, pull a blanket up over your head and w o r r y. Do nothing else but focus on all the bad things that can happen.
And while I am not one to argue with Scripture, I have to ask, can worry be a good thing?
A few years ago I was worrying about worry… trying to figure out why I still spend so much time filled with anxiety. And what I finally realized was that it was my creativity coming out – but in a negative way.
Go with me for a minute and think about worry in a little different way. Five years ago, a design client introduced me to the world of Autism. It was fascinating, heart breaking and awe-inspiring.
In this world they use a phrase called, “The Spectrum,” meaning that people with autism vary from light to extreme in terms of the severity of their challenges. On one end, some have clear symptoms that affect their ability to function while people on the other end can have symptoms so light you would never know they were in a unique struggle.
I want to borrow this phrase and use it with worry to ask the question, “Where do you fall on The Worry Spectrum?”
I once did a talk on creativity to a room full of bankers. Yeah...groan. You might be picturing oak paneling, lots of pin striped suits, cigar smoke floating above our heads. Nope. If you walked in you would think this was just a middle class group of people doing their thing in an office like so many of us. It actually went really well once they realized that creativity isn’t just for those of us who draw, paint, cook, or act. Every person on this big blue ball is filled with creativity.
This was a group of intensely analytical, detail oriented, no gray area, type of people. I was the marketing director on their team and grew to know and love them. Good people but pretty dry. As the presentation went on they were getting excited as they pictured the creativity they could bring to their life and maybe to their work... until there were a few loud coughs from the back of the room.
The senior VP was sitting back, arms crossed tightly over his ample middle, and while it wasn’t there, feel free to add back in that cigar and ominous cloud of smoke.
I paused the presentation as he loudly took center stage, “All this creativity stuff is fine and dandy, but if you get too creative in banking... you’ll go to JAIL!” A hush filled the room as I slowly resumed the presentation. The possibilities had hit the floor. The hope. The glimmer of doing business and maybe even living life another way – they were all gone.
Why? Fear. Worry. Far on the negative side of The Spectrum. “You could go to JAIL!” As you might have guessed I didn’t last longer than a season and a half with them but that day still rattles in my brain.
Let’s visit the other end of The Spectrum, where worry can turn into our friend, albeit by another name. Some call it concern or interest and sometimes focus. It pushes us to work harder, smarter, better. When important things are at stake, we worry.
Even that beautiful word that means so much to us – Hope – is really worry pointed in a positive direction. Hope is worry mixed with intention and excitement. It allows us to dream, to think of limitless possibilities. When do we have the most hope and the most anxiety? When we make major life changes, like proposing marriage, stepping out in a big way towards a dream, or starting a new job.
Take this a step further and you start to realize that worry is the backside of creativity. My Dad was expressing his worry over the mundane in frustratingly elaborate ways because he was dreaming…negatively seeing all the potential for disaster, sure. But it takes a fertile and creative mind to worry. You’re making connections. You’re seeing things that are not and devising ways so they can be.
See how close it is to the positive side of creativity? You’re making good things. Trying to figure out ways past obstacles to create something that has never been. A new way of looking at something. A new way to approach a problem.
So do you worry? Good! It means your creativity is in good shape. And maybe, the more creative you are the more likely you are to struggle with worry.
So the next time you feel anxiety creeping in, stop and evaluate where you are on The Worry Spectrum. Did someone else’s arc of worry leap onto you? Are you embracing dream killing stress on the extreme side of The Spectrum? Or maybe you’re resting somewhere on the light side of The Spectrum and it is a good reminder to pay attention, pull up your boot straps, clear your head and focus on the issues at hand.
Instead of letting anxiety control you, let it open the door to creativity.
2 Likes
Share