On worrying

[duriyah]

Found through journal surfing:

"If you can solve your problem, then what is the need of worrying? If you cannot solve it, then what is the use of worrying?" --Shantideva"

Comments

[cybrgrl]

Heh-heh... OK, I'll play.

Worrying is a survival trait. The emotional aspect reminds a person of what is important, informs the person about how they would feel if the negative outcome were to happen. The mental aspect walks the mind through scenarios, usually proposing some solutions or reactions which may prove useful to either avoid the negative outcome or respond in the best way possible.
If worrying weren't compulsory then the mind would be prone to ignore unpleasant contemplations, leaving a person less prepared for negative outcomes.

There is hardly an emotion that has no good purpose.

[duriyah]

Well, I hadn't thought about it that way when I made the post, but you are definitely right, worrying is productive. I do find that if I am worrying about something in the future, I often prepare myself for it or think of new alternatives for action. Especially if I can set other things aside and just concentrate, let my mind go on for a while, I can have very productive and constructive worrying.

I think there does come a point, though, when I can get a diminishing rate of return on my worrying. I have had in the past a tendency for complusive thought, when I think the same things over and over and get stuck in my thoughts, with no new ideas coming up. So as with anything, I think there can be a point where excessive worrying becomes unproductive.

[cybrgrl]

I whole-heartedly agree - excessive worrying is excessive, and no fun. All things in moderation.

[duriyah]

Absolutely. All things in moderation.

[tanrinia]

i come from a long line of worriers. my grandmother would worry if she had nothing to worry about, and that's NOT an exaggeration. my grandfather had to be discharged from the army early b/c she had some sort of a break down (not that it isn't worthy or normal to worry about your husband during war time, but....)

sadly, i've inherited a bit of it, and i've never found it to be anything but time consuming, and not even approximating productive or useful. so i think i'll be printing this out and tattooing in backwards on my forehead so i can see it every time i look in the mirror :D

probably NOT what Shantideva meant, but it reminds me of this

[_boy_]

Another formative thought in the becoming of _boy_:"Get used to believing that death is nothing to us. For all good and bad consists of sense-experience, and death is the privation of sense-experience. Hence, a correct knowledge of the fact that death is nothing to us makes the mortality of life a matter for contentment, not by adding a limitless time [to life] but by removing the longing for immortality. For there is nothing fearful in life for the one who has grasped that there is nothing fearful in the absence of life. Thus, he is a fool who says that he fears death not because it will be painful when present but because it is painful when it is still to come. For that which while present causes no distress causes unnecessary pain when merely anticipated. So death, the most frightening of bad things, is nothing to us; since when we exist, death is not yet present, and when death is present, then we do not exist. Therefore, it is relevant neither to the living nor to the dead, since it does not affect the former, and the

Re: probably NOT what Shantideva meant, but it reminds me of this

[duriyah]

And I am reminded of: "Cowards die a thousand times before their deaths. The couragous taste of death but once." - Shakespeare

It is not death that frightens me but the manner in which I will die. But the quote makes a good point.

[duriyah]

Ha! That's funny. :)

[unnamed525]

That seems like a false dichotomy to me. It's saying, apparently, that either you can solve your problem, and you know it, or you can't solve your problem, and you know it, but it's excluding the possibility that you don't know how to solve your problem, yet, because you haven't thought about it long enough.

[_boy_]

Nope. Not a false dichotomy, though I agree that you rarely know if you know how to solve a problem at the outset.

The quote doesn't say you can't get more facts, doesn't say you can't ignore it, doesn't say you can't give up, doesn't say you can't kill yourself - it just says that worry in any circumstance is a useless approach, that it causes more problems and solves none.

[cybrgrl]

"If you can solve your problem, then what is the need of worrying? If you cannot solve it, then what is the use of worrying?" --Shantideva"

I see 2 questions, probably intended rhetorically, with implied answers. I can understand interpreting the quotation to state that worrying is useless. I don't see in the quotation any implication that worrying causes more problems.

I tend to agree with unnamed525 that the quote presents a dichotomy, and that the two options (capacity or incapacity to solve a problem) are a vast oversimplification, to the point of falsely representing the matter.

[_boy_]

I can understand interpreting the quotation to state that worrying is useless. I don't see in the quotation any implication that worrying causes more problems.

You're right, I was reading this quote as "worrying is useless"; the "worrying causes more problems" was an extrapolation from my experience, not necessarily intended by Shantideva.

I tend to agree with unnamed525 that the quote presents a dichotomy, and that the two options ... are a vast oversimplification, to the point of falsely representing the matter.Meh. I can see how the dichotomy is oversimplified (probably for rhetorical reasons as you mentioned), but I still don't think that it is technically a false dichotomy - when it comes down to it and all efforts are exhausted, either something is within your power to change or it is not. In either case, it is suggesting that worry is pointless