This columnist's style reminds me of Robert Benchley (you might not remember him, but I do, and it shows how old I am!) and Mark Twain. I loved this essay. If you're a worrier, like its author, you will enjoy reading this one -- you might just recognize yourself...and even be able to laugh a little about it.:-)
As for me, I'm keeping my fingers crossed about this election.🤞
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/jaime-oneill/93297/worry-worry-worry
WORRY, WORRY, WORRY
By Jaime O'Neill
I've worried my way through life. Hasn't everyone? For those of you willing to admit they are worriers, too, you'll know the worry caused by wondering if other people manage to worry less than you do. Are you worrying excessively, beyond the normal range of worrying? And if so, what harm is it causing you? How might it be shortening your life? What can you do about it? Is there a pill? Do you need to see a shrink? Can you afford a shrink? What if you get a bad one who worsens your worries rather than lifting the burden of them?
When I was a kid, I worried about monsters under the bed. I worried about not getting good grades. I worried about my dad getting laid off. I heard the phrase early and often, knew it was not a good thing. I worried about getting in trouble with mom. She called me a "worry wart." I didn't like that. I worried about it. The metaphor was too vivid. Most kids don't do metaphors very well, and I worried about whether worry would transform me into a walking wart.
When I was in grade school, I worried about how I'd do in Middle School. I worried about tests, worried in eighth grade about the transition to high school. In my last year of high school, I worried about getting drafted, worried about getting through basic training if that happened, worried about where I might be sent and who might try to kill me once I arrived.
I worried about what I was eating because someone was always telling us that we weren't eating right.
When I married, I worried if I could be a good husband. Then, not much later, I worried about whether I could be a good dad to a baby girl, a contingency I had not planned for nor ever quite imagined. Obviously, in the event that fatherhood was something that awaited me, I would have a boy. Wouldn't I?
And then I began worrying in earnest, about that baby girl, and then the one after that. I worried about their health, and about the health of their mother, and my own. There were responsibilities now, and they were huge.
I went to college at night, worrying if I could handle a full-time job and the demands of going to school four nights a week. And I worried about the world coming to an end, worried about a nuclear exchange between my country and the Soviet Union. Worry about that was pretty universal in those days. I was not unique.
When I was a kid, I always worried about being too skinny. Now, older by a lot, I worry about getting fat. In high school, I worried about my future. Would I be able to make it in the world? And now, thanks to Donald Trump and the current accelerating madness, I wonder about whether the world will continue to be a place where anyone but the very worst people can be assured of making it at all.
All along the way, damn near from birth-to-77 in no time flat--I worried that while I may have been worrying too much, other people weren't worrying near enough. They weren't worrying enough about the environment, about equal rights for all, about the war in Vietnam, or later, about the rush to war in Iraq. They didn't worry enough about nuclear winter, or about police brutality, or about gender inequality (was I the only one who had close relatives--mothers, sisters, aunts, daughters--who were women? Why did half the eligible voters in the country not bother with voting? Were they free of worry about who was making choices that could make their lives worse, could send their kids to be killed in unnecessary wars far away, or make their children's lives worse in ways too numerous to enumerate? Was it too much to expect my fellow citizens to pay attention?
I worried about that.
And now I worry daily about the immediate future, of my country and the planet. Big worry, that. Having a madman in charge hasn't helped, but at least I no longer worry that I'm alone in my worries. Now I worry about the fact that everyone is worrying. About the spread of the pandemic. About the threat of a homegrown terrorism and the danger of mad men goaded into action by the madman-in-chief. About a desperate army of dispossessed homeless people in search of food.
I worry about being too worried, and not worried enough.
This morning my worried mind presented me with the worry that Trump's current behavior may be suggesting that he's no longer worried about being re-elected. I'm worried that he knows something we don't know. That he has been told by the Russian hackers that they've got this, that he needn't worry about the polls, or the press, or about Biden/Harris. He needn't worry about democracy at all because the election is, as he's so often said, rigged. And rigged to ensure he will win, rigged in the "cloud," rigged somewhere in that vast universe of cyberspace only the geeks--Russian, Chinese, American, Saudi, Israeli, Argentinian--understand.
Because Trump surely is not behaving like a man who needs to worry about winning an election, is he now? Take it from an expert on worrying. He's just not that worried. And that worries the hell out of me.
We've all been told not to worry. I often quote a line from Mark Twain: "Worry is interest paid on a debt we may never owe." And he was right, of course. But I worry if I stop worrying so much, I might tip some sort of cosmic balance wheel and that the disaster that followed would be all my fault.
But no worries. It's far too late in the game for me to worry myself into an early grave. If you are younger, however, I'd suggest you ramp up your worries because you've got a lot of compensatory worrying to do once I'm gone.
To hear "Worried Man" song, click here: http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/jaime-oneill/93297/worry-worry-worry
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