Worry is Killing Me

Picture this for a moment.  Something happens to you that is not up there on the top ten thing you were hoping would happen.  You make a mistake, you say a hurtful statement to a friend, colleague or even a stranger.  The event begins to eat away at you to the point that you worry about it almost daily.  The process consumes you.  It becomes something that always seems to be on your mind and you can't get rid of it.

I used to be like that.  The incident caused restless nights, an inability to concentrate on what the day has put on my plate, and would make my mind race with possible outcomes that turned out to be far fetched and not even close to the resolution.  I was becoming a nervous wreck.

It was a hard lesson to learn but it finally clicked.  I could, and you can, do nothing about the past.  What happened...happened.  We cannot go back.  It seems so simple yet it is a lesson often unlearned until someone else says just that, "we cannot go back."  We can try to make amends for what happened if it hurt another person.    There is also a five step process that could help get over the issue of worrying.  

But what I found best and it has worked for others too is a simple statement found in the "Optimist Creed." The tenants of the creed are normally said at meetings of Optimist Clubs all over the globe and this tenant's  succinct nature really helped me.  Maybe it will help you.

"Promise yourself.......To forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the future."  We cannot do anything about what happened yesterday but we can influence what is happening now and to a certain degree what will happen tomorrow.  

Here's to your greater achievements going forward!