Would It Help? The Art Of Managing Worry
It’s exhausting to live in a constant state of worry. Think about all the anger, doubt, and frustration you carry while navigating daily life. You believe you’re keeping it bottled up, but it begins to seep into everything you do — the words you choose in conversation, the things that trigger your reactions, even your body language when approaching someone. All of it reveals that you’re not in the right mental space.
The source of worry could be anything: a sick family member, urgent financial need, or countless other concerns. But how you handle that worry determines whether you’ll eventually overcome it. Bottling it up doesn’t work when it still shows through your behavior. Acting overly cheerful or manic isn’t the answer either. This isn’t about pretending — it’s about understanding the nature of worry itself.
When you’re worried, you’re stuck in a hypothetical phase with limited control over actual outcomes. You have a problem, you’ve identified what you think is the solution, and now you want that result. Until you get what you believe will resolve the issue, you remain in perpetual anxiety. This unfolds in three stages: figuring out how to get what you want, managing the delays in getting it, and dealing with the possibility of not getting it at all.
Two of these three stages compound your frustration, which inevitably shows in your demeanor. The better approach is to accept that worry exists in the hypothetical. There are things within your control and things beyond it. Make a mental inventory of what you can control and work toward those things. For what you cannot control, remind yourself: this isn’t your burden to carry. You’ll do what you can and be honest with yourself about the rest.
There’s a beautiful moment in the film Bridge of Spies where James Donovan (Tom Hanks) asks Rudolf Abel (Mark Rylance), “You don’t seem worried.”
Abel replies simply: “Would it help?”
And that’s the essence of it all.