In Defense of the Worry Warts

I was recently listening to a speech given by the late, great Wayne Dyer. For those who don’t know, Wayne Dyer was a very pivotal author and speaker in the field of self-development and has been referred to more than once as “the father of motivation”. His books have sold hundreds of millions of copies; his resume goes on and continues to speak for itself.

As I was listening to the speech and enjoying myself and his teachings, there was one thing that popped out and caught my attention in particular, and that was his philosophy on worry. Simply put, Dyer insists that there is never a need to worry about anything, because any object of worry falls into one of two categories: that which you CAN control and that which you CAN’T control. If you CAN control it, then obviously you’ve got it handled because you have the power to decide the outcome, and if you CAN’T control it, then your worries are senseless because there’s no hope of you ever being able to alter the outcome of the situation and you should instead surrender to that and be at peace with it.

Take that in for a second. Sounds nice. It sounds simple and true.

As for me, I’d heard this idea before. A lot of good ideology in self-development is repurposed countless times over — usually because it’s good ideology. Given Wayne Dyer’s place in history, it’s possible this thought started with him. I don’t know.

For the most part, I buy it. It’s clear and it’s sensible, so much so that I think just about anyone who hears it for the first time would understand it fully and breathe a sigh of relief. But I couldn’t help but to think about how it would effect me or — anyone else that heard it — an hour later.

Then a week later. A year later. And so on.

I got to thinking that though it encourages a healthy relationship and mentality with our worries, the euphoric effects probably wouldn’t last and that’s because there’s a muddy, in-between area falling into an undefined third category that Wayne Dyer didn’t address and, to be fair, is probably much more relevant now than it was during the time of this speech.

What I’m talking about are the situations in which our ability to control is still to be determined — the situations in which we can or can just about visualize ourselves reclaiming control with enough effort. This category is becoming increasingly more applicable as it’s getting astronomically more fashionable to believe we can attain almost anything we want. Fewer people are allowing themselves or their communities to be silenced and limited as they feel they’ve been in the past, thus changing the rulebook on what is and isn’t possible.

Though there is great beauty in this, it’s also quick to facilitate a new form of worry to step in, and that is the worry of, “How can I figure out a way to turn what’s out of my control into something that is in my control?” It’s this type of worry that keeps most people up at night and bridges the gap between the controllable and the uncontrollable. It is the question of our own ability to overcome.

Let’s go to an example. Since I’m feeling lazy today, I’ll use one that I’m all too familiar with, from my own background as an actor. Let’s give our example a name, we’ll call her Donna. Donna is an actress who lies awake each night, tormented about the uncertain future of her career. She can’t snap her fingers and have the career she desires, so it’s not in her control. Like all actresses, she’s been told the truths a thousand times: that it’s out of her control. She’s been told it’s not about her talent, but being in the right place at the right time. She’s been told there are literally hundreds of thousands of other actors trying for the same career with not nearly enough parts to go around. She’s been told that you never know what the directors are looking for and that she could miss out on a part simply because she’s too tall, too short, had the wrong color hair, the wrong color skin, the wrong color eyes, etc. She’s been told she can’t buy her way in, advertise her way in, or network her way in. It’s up to the universe, so she should only do it if she loves it and doesn’t necessarily expect a grandiose career to come out of it. This is indisputably out of her control, so therefore she shouldn’t worry about it, right?

Well caring breeds worry, so as her desire grows, so will her worry. And since her feelings are so strong, they can and will overthrow logic like Dyer’s, as many strong feelings do. Her worry becomes not about if she can control it, but how. The thoughts keeping her up live in that third category. They’re thoughts like, “Do I put my morals to the side and sleep my way into the industry? Do I start to film my own stuff that I can star in? Do I create a bigger social media presence? Do I go knocking on more doors and cold calling higher ups?”

This kind of busy work may fractionally improve Donna’s ability to manifest her dream and therefore give her more of a feeling of being in the drivers seat. But until these tactics do or don’t end up working, they establish themselves as sub-worries and can lead to guilt-ridden self-questioning about her level of devotion, where she might have gone wrong, and what she’s capable of. This is the kind of worrying that is currently taking hold over most of us.

Wayne Dyer is quoted as saying, “Recognize the preposterousness of worry. Ask yourself over and over, ‘Is there anything that will ever change as a result of my worrying about it?’”. In a more egocentric, self-confident era than Dyer’s, the answer is yes. The ever important perception of ones abilities and ones self-worth will change from worrying about it.

So what am I saying with this article? Am I saying that Wayne Dyer is wrong? Not really. I’m saying that worry is a very expansive emotion, and that many of us are not in a position to fully live Dyer’s words because they require a level of detachment and acceptance that for many of us is a ways off.

The real concern at hand is that this type of thing happens in face of a lot of self-development giants who seem to have mastered their lives so much so that it can often be frustrating to onlookers. The problem with self-development therein becomes listeners who kick themselves because they simply can’t absorb this information as easily as it’s being given out. It’s a case of feeling bad about feeling bad.

In order to truly improve upon yourself and rid yourself of worry or any feelings you’d rather do without, the first step is and always will be to accept yourself as you are and change the inner commentary from judgment to patience. There’s nothing wrong with you for worrying. It’s not senseless, it’s circumstantial.

Is it necessary? Not necessarily, but it’s where you are. Where you are is fine, and where you are is vitally important because the first step towards where you want to be.