Words from the Master

So we come back to the question: What is worry?

If you look deep inside, you will find that worry is nothing but your response to an event. Whether a situation makes you worry or not, depends entirely on how you choose to react to that situation. And worry has become a constant inner chatter within you, all the time causing uneasiness in you.

For example, suppose your friend gets a new job and comes and tells you about the perks and benefits of the new job and talks about it enthusiastically, how will you react? Unconsciously, you will be chattering inside yourself.

You will start thinking, Oh, he’s got a new job. He is enjoying so many new benefits. What about me? What will my wife say if she hears these perks and benefits? Better not allow this guy to meet my wife, else I will get into trouble. Should I start looking for another job? What if I don’t get it? Nothing ever works out for me anyway…

This is worry!

Worry is what happens when you constantly check yourself against external frames of reference and chatter within yourself about it. And over time, this sets in as your mental makeup.
Am I doing as well as the neighbours?
How can I impress my boss?
What will my children think?

All the time, we need to get approval from others – whether it is family or work or society. This is a major portion of our worry. Our whole life is nothing but a process of collecting certificates from others. If others don’t keep giving you certificates - Good Husband, Good Employee, Good Neighbour - we worry that our life has become worthless.

We form our personality only from others’ certificates. We have all stopped trusting ourselves; that is the problem.

As a child, each of us is strongly centered in our own Being. Have you ever seen any child worrying about what people will think of him? No! A child is such a treat to watch because he has no worries and he is total in whatever he does because he is not worried about what others will say about him.

As we grow up, society plays this idea constantly upon our minds. Society teaches us to evaluate ourselves by the ideas and opinions of others - parents, teachers, friends, even strangers. Society makes us dependent on external support, certificates from others, for each of our actions and words. This is why we are all the time worried about what others will say about us.

Also, when you worry about something, you feel you have a definite point of reference against which you can measure yourself, against which you can function. That is why worrying gives a direction to your life. Without worry, you feel as if you have no axis about which to move. This is why we are actually secretly in love with our worries!

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This excerpt has been taken from the book: Guaranteed Solutions.