Don't Worry, Use Worry

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2018 - DON'T WORRY, USE WORRY
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Have you ever landed in a pickle? Have you ever experienced a situation where you have to problem-solve your way out? Have you ever mulled over an issue in a bid to come up with positive solutions to avoid negative or unwanted outcomes? Or have you ever been in a situation where you cannot even think about anything but to visualize or imagine how disastrous the end-result might be? If you have ever found yourself in any of these situations, then you must have undergone what it truly means to be WORRIED!

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WORRY is, in a sense, a rehearsal of what might go wrong and how to deal with it. The task of worrying is to come up with positive solutions for life's perils by anticipating dangers before they arise. Worry comes into focus when a man's heart is not in agreement with a man's brain. Your brain is telling you—'It's all good. It's been taken care of.' But your gut is saying another thing—'What if you were wrong? What if the opposite outcome ensue?'

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You know those breed of questions that disturb your heart when you've just invested a million naira into the stock market? Those are the kind of questions that comes into play when you are worried. Indeed, the reaction that underlies worry is the vigilance for potential danger, that has no doubt, been essential for survival over the course of evolution. When fear triggers the emotional brain, part of the resulting anxiety fixates attention on the threat at hand, forcing the mind to obsess about how to handle it and ignore anything else for the time being.

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Worrying is not all bad, for there are two types of worry: there is one where all your attention is fixated on the problem at hand without thinking of a way out, and there is another where even though you are equally affected by the problem, your whole thinking is directed at finding a solution in the case of a danger. It is a pity that many today only find themselves at the first stage, where they understood that something might be wrong, or that something might go wrong. Therefore, they start rehearsing how bad the outcome will be, and how disastrous the result of their actions can be, without a second thought on how to problem-solve their way out of their mess—dwelling on this stage on its own is a hitch.

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But there is of course, no hitch when you operate at the second stage of worry, where worry works for you. By mulling over a problem—that is, employing constructive reflection, which can look like worrying—a solution can appear. Human being are very good at this—taking a sober reflection of whatever it is they're going through, which is directly related to the issue at hand, forming a mental image of the event and carefully studying them to figure out where mistakes might have crept in—and oftentimes, they will find those oddities out, and try preferring solutions to those mistakes.

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This is not an article of 'don't worry, be happy', this is an article of 'don't worry, use worry'. At the first stage of worry, you will be worried, and there is no escaping it, you must go through the first stage. But stopping at the first stage without moving on to the next stage where you problem-solve your way out of the mess by mulling over the issue, thereby using worry to your advantage is bad, and can be very devastating.

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To get into the first stage of WORRY is often unintentional, you just slid into it, since no rational man would deliberately put himself into a pickle when there's an alternative, but to get into the second stage of WORRY, it takes a lot of intentionality and will-power. The intentionality not to get brushed down by WORRY itself, and the intentionality to use WORRY to get out of WORRY and ultimately out of the PROBLEM.

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The human mind holds so much power and influence, that whatever it chooses to think about, or mull over, does have the potential to affect the totality of a man. WORRY is a trap, but when you fall into the trap, avoid stopping at the first stage, which is PROBLEM-FIXATED, but strive as much as possible to move over into the next stage, which is SOLUTION-ORIENTED, where you can use your trap against itself, and to your own advantage. When WORRY attacks, when PROBLEMS arise, you can find a way out by not just dwelling on the negative outcomes, but by thinking your way out, by excogitating and coming up with a counter plan.

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Finally, what there is before, is different from what there is now, and what there is now will definitely be different from what will be in the future, but you have to believe that no matter who turns the tide or how it is turned, it is for your own good. No matter what mess you are into, or whatever pickle you find yourself, It is for your lifting.

I therefore dare you to beat the odds, by not focusing your attention on a problem and its catastrophic outcome, for that's what many do, but by focusing all your attention and thinking faculty on excogitating a way out of your problem, for by doing this and employing it as needful, you leave the era where 'worry has you' to the era where 'you have worry in your grasp' and you can determine its faith by using it to your advantage.

#Konstantk is my hash tag, #iLive2impact and #iLive2inspire

~ Alabi O. Stephen
    (mathemagician)