Emotional Math

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Worry is a misuse of imagination.  ~Dan Zadra


People have been nice enough to tell me from time to time that I am creative. Sometimes I think it’s true.  I can look back at some of the things I’ve made or written or produced over the years and see some satisfactory creativity there.  I do think I have an active imagination. I know there seems to be a lot going on in my brain all the time anyway. Now  I can’t really attest to the quality of that activity mind you - I just know that it’s there.

The upside of imagination is the ability to create fun stuff, make stuff up and generally provide at least myself with hours of entertainment.   The downside is that it is hard sometimes to quiet my mind. My active imagination can take any concerns or worries I may have and spin ‘em off into some crazy extreme scenarios pretty quickly. That’s when the arguments inside my head start with one side telling me how crazy I am to worry so much and the other side arguing back that “hey, it could happen!”  

So what does my over-active imagination have to do with a lesson I have to learn over and over again?  Well, this is a big one for me.  Logically I know that worrying about something that hasn’t happened and might never happen is just a GIANT waste of time, emotion and imagination. There’s plenty of trouble that comes into everyone’s life without spending time looking for or worrying over a problem that isn’t actually knocking at the door. But sometimes my logic abandons me and I can sure conjure up a big old scary imaginary monster.

Now in my defense I had some help learning this skill.  Parents can, after all transfer some of their own neurosis onto their children. I really have tried my best not to do the same to my own kids (so far so good on that as far as I can tell). But it is something that I continually struggle with.  

Living with worry and anxiety is not way to live.  I know…I know this.  But I find that worrying is the emotional equivalent of math for me.  Unless I practice doing it (or not doing it in the case of worrying) on a regular basis, I just lose the basics.

I do worry though...well, wonder if I'm ever going to actually pass this particular class.