How to worry properly

Last year I was involved in a near fatal motor vehicle accident. I was out of action for two and a half months. Before the accident I was focusing on many of my responsibilities. My time was well allocated to meetings, travelling, exercising and a host of other activities I deemed important. Like many others there were responsibilities that weighted heavily on me. I even convinced myself that I was important and secretly enjoyed having the responsibility of leading people and being accountable. However, while I was out of action life continued without me. Life was not worrying about me. Last week I was pondering on the things that I made important and gave my focus to. Things became clearer to me when I watched a video that reminded me that animals focus on their well-being. As long as they have food and shelter they are satisfied. Humans on the other hand worry even when these conditions are met. The lesson was crystal clear to me:

“In the Game of Life there are two absolutes; birth and death. There is one requirement; sustain the body. Everything else we create and we call it karma or destiny” ~ Sagren Govender

The first absolute is we all enter the Game of Life by being born. Mystics say that we as spiritual beings choose our parents because through them we will be born into circumstances that will satisfy our soul to learn lessons. I’m not a mystic so I don’t know if that’s true. Unless you’re a mystic you don’t know if that’s true. If we chose to believe them then in essence we are choosing to believe a story that will affect our entire life. My advice is to get over it. Just accept that you were born. The second absolute is none of us are getting out of the Game of Life alive. We don’t even know when or how we are going to die. No use spending time over-thinking that. My advice is to get over it. Just accept that you will die someday. The requirement to continue playing the Game of Life is to take care of your body that is to do things that will keep the body healthy and refrain doing things that will harm the body. That is all nature is asking of us because the function of the body is taken care of. We don’t have to worry about all the biological processes that’s occurring within us; heartbeat, digestion, respiration, etc. Nature has given us one responsibility and that is to sustain this body. Feed the body and rest is the request but while resting after supper we think of our finances, our job/business, health, relationships, house maintenance, etc. A counter argument is unless we drop everything, disconnect from the world and live like hermits these issues are not going to go away. I agree the issues we brought into our lives are not going to just go away. I’m not telling you to stop worrying, I’m suggesting that you worry properly.
Draw three columns on a sheet of paper and . Label the columns ISSUE, OUT OF MY CONTROL and WITHIN MY CONTROL respectively. Take any issue that’s currently worrying you eg:

Now when you want to worry, worry about the items in the last column. You may say that worrying is bad for the health. Worrying about things that are out of your control is bad. Worrying about things that are within your control is just my way of saying FOCUS on things that are within your control.