Why Worrying Changes Nothing

You don’t have to control your thoughts. You just have to stop letting them control you.

Caring and worrying about what people think of us is something we experience and occasionally struggle with.

Worrying is a universal, ageless human ailment. We especially, fearing rejection and failure, are worried about what other people think of us. Your mind has a habit of producing thoughts they may conflict with your beliefs or behaviour.

If you are not careful, you’ll end up believing all the negative thoughts in your head.

This is something I’ve struggled with my entire life up until a year ago, I’m not sure entirely how it started. I decided to do some personal self reflection.

Why do I care so much about what others might think of me? Why do I believe the negative thoughts about myself?

These were mystery questions to me that I wanted answers too. Is it because of my childhood upbringing or did something happened to me as a young kid to feel like this.

During the self reflection, I discovered that worrying and caring about what other people think was like a rocking chair: it gives you something to do but never gets you anywhere.

It occurred to me that if the thing you’re worrying about is going to happen, you’re going to suffer anyways. It’s best not to worry about suffering, which would be an unnecessary additional suffering, if you’re going to suffer anyway later.

And often times your worrying is pointless; and you won’t suffer anyway. Worrying is a waste of time.

As Marcus Aurelius makes it clear; “Don’t waste the rest of your time here worrying about other people– — unless it affects the common good. It will keep you from doing anything useful. You’ll be too preoccupied with what so and so is doing, and why, and what they’re saying, and what they’re thinking, and what they’re up to, and all the other things that throw you off and keep you from focusing on your own mind.”

Dealing with worry is more than just a singular action. It is about conquering one’s own mind, and making a habit of judiciously guarding it from destructive thinking.

The best thing you can do is to avoid certain things in your train of thought: somethings are not meant to be in your thinking.

Removing the random, irrelevant and negative thoughts will lead to a happier life, you are in control of your thoughts.

It’s so important for us to develop a mind and character in which we guard our thoughts and refrain from unhelpful thoughts.

One habit that I developed to become more conscious of my thoughts is meditating every day. With meditation, you learn how to observe your thoughts and become more self aware.

When you meditate, you get a clear picture of your mind and become aware of the thoughts that drive our emotions and actions at the moment. Since I started practicing meditation for the past six months, I’ve seen numerous changes to the way I react to situation, became more confident and learned to be present in most situations.

In the end worry is something has not changed for thousands of years. It is a disease that has, and always be there. Learn to master your own thoughts and reject worry, and focus on what you can control.

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