What, Me Worry?
As a twelve year-old growing up in bucolic northern Illinois, I never had much use for Marvel comics with its stable of mutant superheroes. The eponymous Archie series showcasing all-American teenagers doing everything but prepping for the SAT didn’t connect either. But Mad Magazine was something else entirely - satirical, irreverent, topical, and often inspired. Then, too, there was Alfred E. Neuman, the iconic cover boy with his gap-toothed, imbecilic smile and single, memorable line: “What, me worry?”
We didn’t subscribe to Mad, but eagerly picked the latest copy off the magazine rack at the local Kroger. On one occasion, a middle-aged check-out clerk frowned as my mother placed the item on the counter. “You let your children read that?” she scolded, overlooking the fact that her employer kept the offensive item in stock. Clearly, the priggish clerk worried about the baleful influence this rag would exert on our impressionable young minds.
Could she have profited from A.E. Neuman’ s aphoristic advice? I grew up during one of the hottest phases of the Cold War, when Kennedy and Khrushchev faced off over nukes in Cuba, racial tensions were escalating, and the quagmire of Vietnam was beginning to take shape. And yet, here was carefree Alfred E. Neuman, smiling broadly at the anxious reader and saying, “Why worry?”
One must believe the comment wasn’t meant to be taken seriously; it was just the centerpiece of a running gag. Nevertheless, Alfred E. Neuman stood in good company. Wasn’t it Jesus of Nazareth who counseled his listeners to give no thought to the morrow and simply live for today. “Can any of you, by worrying, add a single hour to your life?” Jesus queried.
Actually, yes, you can. Worry, that intuitive sense that something perilous lurks around the corner can protect us and our loved ones. Worry begets vigilance, exactly what we often need to stay out of harm’s way. For example, it’s perfectly reasonable to worry a bit about the sobriety and the distractedness of other drivers because it helps us stay on our toes.
Worry does produce stress. In extreme cases it becomes an anxiety disorder whose physical symptoms may include heart palpitations, hypertension, insomnia and even shorter life expectancy. Clearly, heightened worry doesn’t serve us well. In an earlier age this attribute served an important protective purpose. The snap of a twig or the sight of a shadowy figure could alert the hunter-gatherer to the presence of a dangerous predator. But today, Jonathan Rauch observes, primal worry can prove maladaptive, leading us to take the sort of extreme protective measures that undermine our freedoms and transform a neutral atmosphere into one of mutual suspicion.
Still, moderate worry can be useful. For example, a study published in the journal Emotion tested this thesis on a sampling of students taking the bar exam. Once the assignment was over and the subjects were awaiting the outcome, some adopted a fatalistic attitude and just relaxed: “What will be, will be,” they told themselves. Others found it very difficult to escape their worries: they hoped for the best but braced themselves for possible failure. Once the scores were posted, which group was better prepared to handle the information? As it turns out, the worriers were both more thrilled if they passed and less devastated if they failed.
Does worry get a bad rap? To a certain extent, it probably does. If worry raises our stress level we presume it should be avoided because stress, as we all know, is unhealthy. But that may be an over-simplification because some research suggests that stress is harmful only if the subject believes it is harmful. If we reframe the experience of stress and regard it in a more positive light, its deleterious effects are dampened. “Over a hundred thousand Americans may have died prematurely,” the health psychologist Kelly McGonigal argues, “not from stress, but from the belief that stress is bad for you.”
So…can we really choose not to worry about certain things, be selective in what we worry about? According to the Stanford anthropologist T.H. Luhrmann, around a third of us are born with a genetic predisposition for higher levels of anxiety which may make it hard for us to worry less. Furthermore, over-exposure to a sensationalist, conflict-driven media increases the propensity to worry. Many Americans these days suffer from a kind of free-floating anxiety that then latches onto each disaster de jour, raising it to near-panic levels.
We need to train ourselves to be more discerning, letting go of sources of worry and anxiety over which we can exert little, if any, influence and channeling our attention into areas where we can make a difference. At a personal level, that may mean more intentional retirement planning or keeping closer tabs on the social media our kids are using. “We worry a lot about the future without there being anything we can really do,” Art Markham observes, “so “find an action you can perform and engage with it.”
It’s usually futile to repress or run away from our worries. Using mindfulness, we trace them back to their origins and are then able to put them in perspective. “Steady yourself and see that it is your own thinking that darkens your world,” the poet John O’Donohue writes.
(But) search and you will find/A diamond thought of light/and a new confidence will come alive/to urge you toward higher ground/where your imagination/will learn to engage difficulty/as its most rewarding threshold.
