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How many worries are in your worry queue?

I'm a worrier. My mother was a worrier. My kids are worriers. It's been going down the line. But the other day while riding in the car with my daughter, son-in-law and their kids some potentially worrisome topic came up and my daughter commented "I have too many other things to worry about. I don't have room for that one." And then my son-in-law said "Your worry queue is filled." An image immediately came into my head of a line-up of worries stepping into my head until my head was full and the rest of the queue simply had no room to enter. Like "queuing up" for a bus and the bus arrives but it's crowded and only a few people can squeeze in.

And I got to thinking that it would be quite a relief to turn my head into a mini-car rather than a bus. There would be so much less room for worries. And if ever there was a time, I thought, to limit the space in my head for worries it would be now. Worries take up too much space and I feel as I get older that I need that space for more productive thoughts. The way I see it, space is limited. You give too much of it to worries you simply limit the space for anything else.

No one is worry-free. Nor do I think we should be. But I do believe that idle worries are a waste of precious time. I want to try to keep my worry queue limited to worries that I can do something about. I want my worries to lead to actions that will resolve the worries. I want those worries that will get me nowhere and simply take up space to get off the queue altogether. Go queue up on some other line.

I'm trading in my bus for a Mini Cooper. Anyone care to join me???

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