Anxiety is never worth worrying about

I spend a lot of time in airports and I frequently see people who are borderline apoplectic with anger, anxiety and worry that they’ll miss their connection or be otherwise inconvenienced. They are beside themselves with worry that they’ll miss their flight.
 
So what?
 
People miss flights all the time. And when they do, the meeting gets postponed, the party is missed or the vacation begins one day later. Again, so what?
 
You will survive
People actually lose their jobs all the time, too. They also get sick all the time, and they suffer the breakup of relationships, too. If you’re alive and breathing, bad things are, occasionally, going to happen to you. But you are going to survive.
 
The point is, we spend so much time worrying about horrible things happening to us. And on the odd occasion when they do, it’s never so bad as we believe it’s going to be. Yes, it’s inconvenient, annoying, sometimes even painful. But the feelings of tension, anxiety, anger and frustration that we experience by letting ourselves be rattled by the anticipation of the event are far more disturbing, damaging and dangerous than the unwelcome outcomes that we endure.
 
Worrying about it is worse than the problem
The list of negative health effects that chronic worry and anxiety can bring on should be enough to scare you out of being scared: Skin conditions, irritability, high blood pressure, ulcers, restlessness, panic attacks, increased heart rate, hyperventilation, sweating, trembling, feeling weak or tired, trouble concentrating, gastrointestinal problems, depression, headaches, irritability, heart palpitations, muscle aches and loss of libido.
 
Or you could just be late for your meeting. The choice is yours.
 
The same comparison is true regardless of the particular worry that might be your personal favorite. We all believe that our worry is different, the negative outcomes more catastrophic, the consequences more far-reaching. But they’re not.
 
Worries or lessons?
While the negative outcomes are never as bad as we believe they’re going to be, the lessons that we can learn and the growth we can experience from those outcomes are always infinitely more valuable than you can imagine. But that’s if, and only if we choose to pay attention to the lessons.
 
Think back to some situations in which the very thing you were worried about came true. While it’s obvious that you survived, how bad was it? Be honest with your assessment here – Did things turn out to be as terrible as you had imagined them being during the runup to the catastrophe? Or were they not quite as awful as you anticipated they were going to be?
 
Perhaps, more importantly, did you grow from the experience? Did you learn any lessons that have helped you to avoid or mitigate similar situations in the future? What were your takeaways? Did it just leave you even more worried about a repeat performance? Or did experiencing the consequence result in your begin better prepared and better equipped in the future?
 
Bad things will still happen
There is no doubt that at some point in your future, something is going to happen that you’d prefer didn’t. Are you going to spend the time between now and that day working on your heart palpitations? Or are you going to rationally anticipate that life will throw the occasional curve ball, be ready with the lessons you’ve been learning all your life and, in the meantime, enjoy the sunshine?

“Do you remember the things you were worrying about a year ago? How did they work out? Didn’t you waste a lot of fruitless energy on account of most of them? Didn’t most of them turn out all right after all?
Dale Carnegie