I hate it when people say, “calm down” and “don’t worry.”
Although the words are typically said with good intentions, I often feel like yelling, “If just saying, ‘calm down’ and ‘don’t worry’ would magically make it happen, I would have done it by now, thank you very much!”
So how do you get rid of this worry?
During the beginning of a two-week long trip overseas, I was concerned about my responsibilities back home, but I also knew I was too far away to put out any fires. So I put down those issues and focused on my trip.
However, two days before my flight home, whenever my mind wasn’t occupied with the day’s activities, thoughts about the duties I faced in the US starting sneaking in. I still hadn’t found a new chef and if I had to go straight to the kitchen the day my plane landed, I wouldn’t even have a chance to get over jet-lag. I tried to stop worrying, reassuring myself that I had seen a lot of impermanence. I reminded myself of plenty of instances in which a lot of things I thought wouldn’t happen, happened. And at the same time, a lot of things I thought would happen, didn’t happen.
My mom always says, “let’s think about when it actually happens.” That’s the ultimate in impermanence. To my credit, I have been able to put down quite a few pressing issues and wait. But for this case, it was simply unfathomable how I would not be back to lifting that heavy wok in the midst of suffering jet-lag. I just couldn’t see how it wouldn’t happen in that precise way. Best case scenario, I return to the kitchen and maybe if I’m super lucky, a chef will come a-knocking sometime that week, apply on the spot, and start work the next day. But that’s still at least a couple days of exhaustion. Ugh.
So, I worried a bit on the plane. Then I landed, unpacked, and fell into a deep slumber. Woke up the next morning bright and early, put on my chef’s coat and drove to work. Drove the usual couple of loops until finally getting a parking spot, and walked down the hill. Then my phone rang. Unknown number.
“Hello?”
“Hi, are you back yet?”
“Yes, I just got back last night. Who is this?”
“My son is going to apply for work today.”
“Oh ok, I will be here all day. He can stop by anytime.”
“He’s there.”
“Where?”
“In front of the restaurant.”
“What? Now?”
“Yes, and he’s ready to work today.”
Well hot damn. Steps away from the front door, I am freed from being chained to the hot wok for the entire day. Instead of (sleepily) doing the heavy lifting myself, my job suddenly changed to one in which I use my mouth – trainer. What made it better was that the guy didn’t need to be trained on how to cook. And what’s more, I wasn’t even jet-lagged like I had expected! Even if you had told me this was going to happen, I wouldn’t have believed you.
So many times, I’m consumed with worry, which I’ve found comes from the unknown and unresolved. Sometimes I’ll worry whether or not I’ve done the right thing, said the right thing, or made the best decision. So I play the scenes over and over again in my head, trying to reach a conclusion. But you know what? Sometimes it’s impossible to reach a judgment because the issue just needs more time to conclude. Like in my case with the cook, all I needed to do was wait. There was nothing I could do to affect a change before the moment of the phone call. I couldn’t have called anyone else I hadn’t already called, I couldn’t have done anything else differently or better, given the circumstances. It was already out of my control.
It’s this lack of control and the looming unknown that really drives me nuts. But when I look back on the various things I’ve worried about, some really were resolved with time. The culprit doesn’t often come out wearing bells and flashing red lights at the time all hell breaks loose. Sometimes it takes hours, days, months, or years before the truth is revealed. Some cases are still open. And some closed cases have to be reopened once new evidence presents itself, so that conclusions can be re-concluded.
As for the issues that didn’t require time, they required a change in perspective. Often I was pushing for certain results or for an immediate answer. In those cases, the answer was already waiting, and I just needed to find it. By shifting my focus, from “doing this to make him happy” to “doing this to see what I can learn from it,” I effectively unchained myself and stopped worrying.
All this time, it’s the how that I never understood. How can I solve this problem if I don’t analyze the details all the time? How can I understand the situation if I just leave it be? Well, now I know that the answer lies in experience. Through my own personal experience, by reading books, and watching TV, I know how things can change and how life is full of the unexpected. I know and I’ve seen how time and patience can be all that you need. And I’ve had many tastes of how the conclusions I had thought to be final were only the beginning.
So, maybe there is some wisdom in the words, “calm down,” and “stop worrying,” after all. They aren’t magical words. You have to make your own magic.
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