Do we direct our worries in the wrong way too much?

Last fall before school started, I was walking toward Welch Avenue one day when a stranger walked beside me and began talking to me. This older man and I ended up having two hours of friendly conversation at a cafe.

Should I have thought twice?

A female friend recently offered a male acquaintance a ride home from a bar. He didn’t think anything of it and accepted. She didn’t think anything of it either until some friends teased her about it, which made my friend ponder what bad things could have happened in his presence.

Was this friendly or naive?

“God’s Little Devotional Book for Women” published by Honor Books last year said 40 percent of things we worry about never happen.

Oftentimes, we put ourselves in harmless situations that are interpreted into something more than we realize at the time. However, we tend to think about the possibilities a situation may have held later, especially if someone was hurt.

My friend let a male companion walk her home one night, but only halfway because her place would be out of his way.

What are the chances of her being assaulted walking alone the rest of the way? How often do you ponder the awful things that could happen every time you’re on central campus at night?

The probability of this is very slim. It’s not wrong to worry about walking alone at night, but there is a difference between being worried and being paranoid.

Everyday, we ponder in some way what the rest of our lives will hold. We are told to anticipate the worst and hope for the best. We prepare to make alternate choices if something doesn’t go as planned.

But when making choices, it is usually wrong to depend entirely on past events that you wouldn’t consider giving a second thought to.

After getting in a minor car accident, would you still drive another car?

If you failed in one relationship, would you still consider pursuing another?

If you didn’t get the job you wanted, would you still apply for another job?

The book goes on to say that 30 percent of our worries are about past, unchangeable decisions. These worries consist of phrases like “if only I had done this.”

We usually learn from our past experiences. However, if we keep living in the past, the present becomes irrelevant to our existence.

The more we live in the past, the more deeply we read into it. This is especially true of relationships.

In other words, your “relationship hopeful” from two years ago isn’t getting on with his life when he calls you for advice about your old roommate.

Some people who dwell too much on the past become paranoid. Much of this can be attributed to drugs and alcohol.

Studies usually show the numbers of alcoholics and drug users are growing. However, given that we act responsibly, the probability of becoming an alcoholic or a drug addict is small.

But would we feel the same way about an illness over which we had no control? Probably not.

In reality, though, 12 percent of our worries are about illnesses that never happened.

Yet studies are constantly leading us to believe we live in an unhealthy and dangerous society.

Many of life’s obstacles we learn from our closest friends. We wonder if they passed that final, got that job or made something of their lives.

With all the worrying we do over them, is it really worth it? It turns out that everything always works out in the end for them.

Evidently, 10 percent of our worries are about our friends who were able to take care of themselves.

That leaves 8 percent of our worries to real problems that are pertinent to us. But in the scheme of things, maybe we should stop worrying so much and enjoy life as it is. After all, it isn’t every day you come across a friendly stranger whose company you appreciate and enjoy.

---

Shuva Rahim is a junior in journalism and mass communication from Davenport.