“No amount of anxiety makes any difference to anything that is going to happen.” ~Alan Watts
I have a love-hate relationship with this quote. As a lifelong worrywart, I resent being made aware of the utter uselessness of thousands of hours spent fretting and worrying. As someone who would like to spend less time being anxious, I appreciate the truth of the statement. All the bad things that have happened in my life happened whether I’d worried about them or not. My worry made no difference to the outcome.
In a society that prides itself on strength and bravery and independence, expressions of fear or anxiety are often considered weakness. As such, in the modern world, anxiety — which we all have — usually makes its public appearances garbed in negativity, criticism, accusations and harsh judgment. The more anxious we are, the more negative and critical we get. The biggest complainers and grumblers and accusers around us are probably, under the surface, the most anxious and fearful people we know.
Listen to the voice in your head for a day or two and take note of the negative, complaining, critical thoughts and commentary. Don’t try to stop them, just become aware of them. Once you notice them, ask yourself what’s underneath them. It’s probably worry, which is a byproduct of fear: fear of the unknown, fear of loss, fear of destruction, fear of change.
Back in the before times (before the internet, before instantaneous global interconnectivity and the ability to put our every opinion and activity online for all the world to see) how did we handle anxiety? Some prayed, some drank, some worked to excess, some threw themselves into activism, others tried avoidance and distraction through entertainment or hobbies. We still do all of these things. The internet has given us the addition of a highly addictive platform and the ability to kvetch collectively without ever hauling our behinds off the sofa.
Of all the things I’ve quit doing for the sake of my health and wellbeing, the proclivity to complain is the hardest of all to stop. It’s deeply ingrained and contagious. And it’s physically damaging, too, as it increases stress and that increases inflammation.
In the same way that worry and anxiety doesn’t make any difference to anything, collective kvetching has no positive effect. To borrow a phrase from Dale Carnegie, this is NOT “how to win friends and influence people,” and it’s not how to create beneficial change.