The Solution to All Your Problems
Why worry is preposterous and what to do about it
I'm going to suggest a solution to all your problems. It might sound dumb to you initially but stick with me. Here it is:
Stop worrying about anything.
Most of us know that worrying doesn't add anything constructive to our lives. Terence McKenna said it succinctly: “Worry is preposterous.”
So why don't we stop doing it?
Of course it's easier said than done.
But why is that?
Because we secretly believe worry is necessary. We believe in its usefulness. We believe worrying about things assures that we progress in life and maintain a sense of identity. Worry feeds the illusion of control.
Picture this:
You have a perfectly smooth surface, 1 meter by 1 meter in size. On it, there are countless self-replicating marbles, also perfectly smooth. Now the goal is to keep all the marbles on the surface. The marbles of course have a different plan — they’re constantly multiplying and dispersing and sliding toward the edge.
You might play this game for a while. But it takes substantial focus and energy, and you wonder why the hell you’re playing this game anyway. Why do these marbles need to stay on the surface? What's the goal? What’s it to you?
That’s what worrying is. You’re trying to keep your problems (marbles) in your mind (surface). But what for? Why are you doing it if it’s making you miserable and doesn’t lead to solutions?
I’d say the unstated goal of worrying is to solve the problem that seemingly causes the worrying so that you’re free from the worry. In other words, the goal of worrying is to stop worrying.
Sounds self-defeatingly silly.
Identity Crisis and Avoiding Reality
Maintaining a sense of identity might sound desirable but it’s this exact identity that is the error. When we worry, identity is at the center of it. We worry because identity is at stake. ‘Me’ as a good, intelligent, capable, kind, healthy, happy, etc. person is at stake.
A most fruitful inquiry is questioning this identity.
Try to find to whom these worries refer. What I mean is try to find the direct experience actual entity, not the conceptual one, who has the problems.
Look if there is an actual ‘me,’ or ‘I’ to whom all these thoughts and feelings pertain. Thoughts and feelings don’t happen to ‘me,’ because ‘me’ is just another thought-feeling amalgamation. Counterintuitively, thoughts and feelings do not occur to or through anyone.
There is no thinker thinking thoughts; there is only thinking. There is no feeler feeling feelings; there is only feeling. There is no subject separate from objects; there is only this inconceivable functioning appearing as subject and object.
So whenever you assume you are thinking, feeling, doing, seeing, living, etc., stop and look more closely at your experience. Are you — an apparent entity — involved in any of it?
This doesn’t need to take long. Look at what is, sincerely, unfiltered by concepts without expecting to see anything specific. Just look and see.
With no ‘me’ at the helm, it’s clear that worrying is like a ghost haunting itself. Then worry is no longer an issue because thoughts are no longer an issue. Without the me-conviction, there’s no resurrecting energy flowing into worries.
O.K. but if there is no separate, struggling identity to stop worrying, then who stops worrying? Not you, that’s who. Jokes aside. It’s one of these things that’s tricky to put into words. Let me try anyway:
It’s the effortless functioning of life realizing there’s no need to keep carrying this burden.
Not perfect but good enough. Moving on.
I squeezed this inquiry in at the beginning because resolving the identity crisis most of us suffer from is a vital step, perhaps the most vital one. Anything coming afterward is just the cherry on top.
In the meantime, stop worrying.
I know, I know, saying to just stop worrying seems simplistic. You might scoff at this and say you would’ve done that like two lifetimes ago if you could’ve. I dare you to cast your net one more time.
You might have concluded that ceasing to worry is foolish because you’re just “avoiding reality.” That's not true.
First of all, you’ve grappled with your problems for long enough. You know their forms and shapes and textures. What’s left to avoid?
Second, ceasing an imaginative act that causes emotional pain is not avoiding reality. It's facing reality.
Why and What for?
I'm not offering a technique or step-by-step approach to stop worrying — those usually don’t work. Nor am I saying you should war with negative thoughts or suppress them or act as if they aren’t there. I'm doing the opposite.
I'm sharing the understanding that allows worry to cease naturally (maybe not all at once, but surely). Understanding is the keyword here. Through clear seeing, understanding seeps into your bones. And understanding leads to change, effortlessly.
Anyway, now that we have resolved the identity crisis and seen that we are not who we believe we are, what’s next?
Well, perhaps nothing needs to come next. But this essay isn’t done. So for the heck of it let’s add the cherry on top.
A good step is looking at your life and seeing how it is affected by worrying. Does it improve your life? Does it help you enjoy your life more? Or does it do the opposite?
When you’re convinced that it's not beneficial and that you’d like to do without it (thanks a lot) you can cease justifying worry.
Another good step is seeing that no one forces you to worry. You might make something called conditioning (social and otherwise) responsible for your anxious state of mind. But the truth is that conditioning is only a concept.
Right here right now in your direct experience, what is it that forces you to worry?
You don’t need to agonize over paying your bills to remember to pay them. When it’s time to pay them you pay them with the same straightforwardness as drinking water when you’re thirsty.
Actions can happen without the emotional baggage of worry.
Now we have three major pieces on the field. Worry isn't constructive in your life AND you’d like to no longer worry AND no one forces you to worry.
Let's zoom further into worry and extract more pieces.
For most of us, there are a handful of worries that are more or less active on a regular basis. The topics usually revolve around security, approval, and control.
Of course, if we want to find explanations for this habit of worrying we can find them. We might say that the brain is hardwired for it, or we've been conditioned to worry and because we've been doing it for so long it's deeply ingrained in our psychological makeup, or worry means I care and that means I'm a good person and being a good person is good.
Forget it. Here we’re just back to finding justifications for worrying.
But before we forget it, let me point a finger at you: What would you say if I asked you why you're worrying?
I knew what I said. I said, “I worry because I fear that if I don't keep tabs over all the problems in my life, my life will implode and fall apart and turn to dust, and because I believe I am this person and this is my life, me and my life would be a failure and this would be the worst-case scenario.”
Okay, I didn't say it exactly like that, but you get the gist.
I now see that this reason for worrying is wholly unnecessary. It's one of the linchpins that keeps much of our inner turmoil in place.
Worry, after all, is nothing but imagining a negative outcome and investing emotional energy into that negative outcome. Perhaps we feel justified in this because it helps us prepare for preventable eventualities. But you know as much as I do that's not what we're talking about. Nor are we talking about momentary concerns that leave no trace. We're talking about the repeating circular self-talk that makes you afraid of life.
Evidently, all your problems so far have solved themselves one way or another. You're here. So everything has worked out.
Now you might claim that yes, your problems have solved themselves in the past because you have solved them. You clinched with them until you came upon the solution.
Question this. Question your belief in agency and control. Question your belief in a someone to have agency and control. Here we’re back to investigating the existence of a self. The belief in a separate individual entity in charge of “my life” is where all the imagined troubles begin.
Also, did you really come upon the solution? Was it waiting for you at the corner store? Why this solution and not another one? Where did it come from? Did you conjure it? If so, how did you do it?
And if you can do all of that, why can’t you stop worrying?
Imagination, Separation, and Surrender
Problems aren't solved by emotionally entangling yourself in them. Suffering because you're imagining unwanted outcomes is optional.
Think about it. Your attention is the currency here. Keeping all your attention firmly on the problem state and thinking, feeling, and acting from within the problem state can only lead to more problems.
How do you expect to find a solution if you give the problem more substance than it needs? Actually, the problem has no substance except the one you so graciously bequeath it with. A problem is only a problem because you make it a problem.
Besides, reflect on how the problems in your life have been solved.
Some had obvious, straightforward solutions. Others you couldn't solve and instead, of trying harder, you “gave up.” You surrendered the problem over to God as the bible would say. And suddenly, unexpectedly the solution burst forth. (Some problems you haven't solved yet because you're keeping them alive by feeding them with nourishing emotional energy.)
Has worry played a useful role anywhere in this, except in making it all more dramatic?
I get it. You're still not convinced that ceasing to worry will actually solve your problems. You don't believe not worrying will increase the number in your bank account. You believe it will merely keep your mind off the problem until the worst possible thing happens.
This is unjustified. Keeping your mind off worrying will do the opposite. It will lead to the most optimal solution, unburdened by fears, hopes, expectations, and attachments.
Your experience is like a straight wide river; worrying is like digging curves and adding artificial structures that give the flow s-shapes. It seems like you're altering the direction but all you’re doing is obstructing.
To elaborate further, let's acknowledge something: your thoughts and feelings, or what you consider your inner private experience, aren't divorced from what appears in your environment, or what you consider your outer shared experience.
You can see this in your direct experience right now.
You're not experiencing the world “out there.” You're experiencing your experience of the world. What we call “the world” is nothing but sensory experience and this sensory experience is as private or internal as thoughts and feelings.
In other words, nothing is outside your awareness. And all the content of your experience (e.g. thoughts, feelings, sensations, etc.) is equal in this light. And all the content is interdependent — as Carl Sagan said, “If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”
This is to say, a change in thought and feeling will result in a change in all other appearances. When you stop regurgitating worries, you're cutting off their lifeline because worries aren't actual — they’re imagined, and when you no longer imagine them they no longer seem to exist.
You might believe that worry (= thought + feeling) has no effect at all on other appearances, but is that really so?
Is it so hard to see that someone who thinks and feels positively all the time will have a better life than someone who thinks and feels negatively all the time?
You don't even have to believe that positive thoughts and feelings “manifest” a more desirable life experience. The positive thoughts and feelings is the more desirable life experience manifested. Thoughts and feelings are manifestations as much as watermelons are.
By the way, I'm not saying you’re responsible for all your misfortune or that worrying about a scenario will bring it about, alla mind over matter. I'm saying worrying is the unnecessary activity of entertaining misfortunes, and suffering because of it. Oh, and I'm not saying mind over matter because mind and matter are both concepts appearing in the same whatever this is.
To repeat, worry is an act of imagination. And you might believe imagination is perfectly divorced from the “real world.” That’s not the case. There is no separation or divorce between the world and your imagination.
Imagination is as real as the world — it’s an extension of the world (or vice versa?).1 Your imagination influences the world. We must acknowledge that all the stuff we created (e.g. buildings, planes, companies, artwork, food, etc.) has existed in imagination before it existed in the world. And I’m sure many of you can confirm this in your own experience (e.g. synchronicities).
If you can’t confirm this in your experience, I suggest you start paying more attention to your experience.
Notice the interplay between thoughts and feelings and what appears in your environment. Become aware of all the ways something hasn’t worked out and the one way it has. Observe how desires fulfill themselves. Reflect on the times when things happened effortlessly versus when they happened through tremendous effort.
Become the scientist of your experience.
For this to work, I need you to accept, or at least consider the possibility, that changing your mind changes your world (again, not necessarily in a mind-over-matter kind of way but in an it's-all-part-of-the-same-inconceivable-reality kind of way). I can try to convince you of this logically but there is only so much I can do. You have to leap.
There is an element of “surrender” in here. Surrender is recognizing that life is taking care of itself. You’re the little sibling with the unplugged controller. "Not my will, but Thy will be done,” said J.C.
The Worst and Best Case Scenario
Let's address the elephant on the page.
Part of this piece is me saying there is no you and the other part is saying you're doing this all to yourself. It's what they call a paradox. But it only seems like one. Let me swiftly resolve this paradox: You’re nothing in particular and everything in general.
Besides that, I know I’m quite idealistic about these matters. And I'm aware that the position I'm taking (= to stop worrying) is easy to criticize. But I'm also aware that the ones criticizing this position have most likely not given this a sincere shot. Because if you do you'll see that not worrying is nothing but beneficial and that arguing for its continuation is perfect sadomasochistic foolishness. You'll just end up arguing against yourself and your well-being.
Let's say, for example, you worry about money. Perhaps you've been worrying about money for a long time. You worry that you'll never have enough and that you'll always have to struggle for money and that any big expense could wipe you out financially.
Here it's obvious that the worry doesn't lead to a solution. With all the worrying you've been doing, shouldn't you have found a solution or two yesterday?
Most likely worry has done the opposite. It has perpetuated the problem. It has made the problem a bigger part of your experience and has led to emotional suffering. So what are you going to do, worry about this for the rest of your life?
What would happen if you’d stop worrying about money?
Here's what would happen:
You’d feel better.
You’d leave the mental state of lack.
You’d think and feel and act differently, leading to a different life.
“Okay, but if not worrying doesn't solve the problem, what then?” I hear you ask.
Okay, imagine this. Your whole life you worry about money. You worry about not having it; you worry about losing it. (And we're not even talking about the adjacent worries that come with money worries.) Despite your worries, you're still here, alive, year after year. Some years are worse, some are better. Eventually you reach the end of your life and realize something: You always had enough and yet always worried about not having enough. You worshipped the problem in the hope of solving it and never did. You had this problem your whole life because you insisted on it and for that, you suffered doubly.
Isn’t the end of worry a worthy benefit in and of itself?
The worst-case scenario is that your problem remains but you're no longer worrying about it and therefore, it's no longer bothering you emotionally. The best-case scenario is that you cease the incessant worrying and a solution to your problem presents itself.
Even if nothing in your environment changes or you don't get what you prefer, you're still happier. So what do you have to lose?
Worry is a form of self-harm. But it's self-harm that you hope will lead to a positive resolution. Self-harm is never worth it and never the best approach for anything, except of course harming yourself.
Ceasing worry means ceasing the fight with reality. And ceasing the fight with reality means ceasing the fight with yourself. And ceasing the fight with yourself means peace.
But the funniest bit about ceasing the fight with reality is recognizing there never was a fight to begin with. What would fight with what? This has always been flowing without interference.
Now the only thing left to do is to give this a try.2
Although the information here may relax your mind already, chances are that you won't stop completely. A bullet train going 300km/h won't stop on the spot when you hit the brakes. There is a braking distance.
On a practical note, you can approach it like this: Give yourself 15 minutes a day to actively worry. Worry to your heart's content. But for the rest of the day, no worrying. This will significantly reduce your worry time (some people worry all day long as if their life depends on it). And when you see its beneficial effect on your life you'll gladly cut your worry time to zero.
Or try the following: On a day off with nothing to do, spend the whole damn day worrying. I mean it. Force yourself to worry. Act as if you're competing for the gold medal in worrying — give it everything you've got. At some point, you'll be sick of it and it'll seem so so so absurd. This is correct.
The more sick and tired of all the worrying you are, the more willing you are to ditch it. And the more you see things working out without an imagined you overseeing all your problems, the easier it is to remain in a worry-free state of mind.
In a way this is the solution to the original worry — the problem of life: What is life and how do we live it?
Instead of having a conceptual answer, we live, intimately.
A worry-free state of mind is intimate because it allows us to engage more with the immediate present experience instead of being bullied by the stories we tell ourselves. We embrace the mystery we are instead of warding it off with fear-based conceptual walls.
Of course, worrying isn't wrong or bad or something you shouldn't do. It's all good and allowed. But why not take this as a fun little experiment? You’ve tried worrying — probably for years. What’s stopping you from trying the opposite?
Inquire and experiment with this yourself. Live as if worry isn’t necessary and see what happens. Otherwise, the only one benefiting from this piece is me because it amused me to write it.
Peace.
I know, I said worries aren’t actual, they’re imagined. And now I say imagination is as real as the world. The point is this: Imagining is actual, its content (= worries) is not — it’s conceptual. Worries might not be actual but neither are meters or inches, yet they’re part of life’s interdependent play of appearances.
Ultimately, what is aware of/as imagination and what is aware of/as the world is the same, and this is the actual part.
Hopefully, by now it’s clear that when I say “give this a try” I don’t mean forcing thoughts and feelings into submission or anything like that. I’m inviting you to look more closely into your experience.
Spectacular ❤️
Some real gems in this article, well worth the read, thank you for producing it. Anyone who decides to nitpick at this article is missing the point completely.