Worry, an Incurable Affliction

By CHARLES M. GUTHRIE

Of the editorial/opinion page staff

published by the StarTribune

April 9, 1967

   A VAPID BIT of advice was given to a high-strung ball player the other day by his manager. The fellow was told to "quit worrying."

   This automatically disqualified the manager as a psychologist.  The worrier, as anyone should know, does not quit worrying on command.  He may be told half a dozen times a day to forget his problems and relax  All this does is anger him and increase his worry.  If he could shut off his worry as he shuts off the tap, life would be beautiful.

   According to psychologists there's nothing abnormal about worry and one should not be ashamed of it.  This is comforting to know.  Worry has been my portion ever since I got my first report card.

   My wife scoffs.  "The only thing you worry about is whether you'll get a night's sleep.  Your worrying act strikes me as strictly phony."  

   BUT I MAINTAIN that anyone who out-worries me needs a psychiatrist.  It's all very silly, I tell myself, but I worry anyway.  What gnaws at the innards is of little importance, really, and vanishes as soon as I'm out of bed.  If I got up instead of tossing for half an hour worrying about the window screens and the garage roof I'd suffer a lot less.

   It's only when worry gets in the way of thought, say the experts, that one is in trouble.  This means that you should attack the roof problem from which worry springs.  And if you must worry, worry creatively.

   The challenge seems plain.  He who worries about not having enough money to pay the bills should solve everything by making more money.  It's as simple as that.  Maybe a bit of moonlighting at Joe's Bar would turn the trick.  Or maybe the worrier should sink his all into Consolidated Pig Iron or Allied Spaghetti so he could worry about invesrments instead of athlete's foot.  Or maybe he should send

the kids off to summer camp and worry less about the population explosion. 

   One of my pet worrries involves the car.  I fret about dents and scratches, about tires and wheel alignment and spark plugs and gas mileage.  I checked the oil the other day and the level seemed too high.  Next morming before getting up I realized the worst.  Water was getting into the crankcase.  The head gasket was shot.  Also the car had started shifting from high to second when speed was reduced. Obviously I faced a major repair bill.

   I kept chewing on the problem morning after morning.  Finally my mechanic looked things over, said the head gasket was okay and that no water was getting into the crankcase.  The transmission oil was low, though, because a part which contained a diaphragm which controlled the gear shift was defective.  This was replaced at small cost.  My worry had been for nothing.

   WE'LL START DRIVING to the cabin again soon, the weatherman willing, and I'll worry about that.  You can't drive 200 miles time after time without eventually getting smeared by some crazy driver or being a crazy driver yourself.  The law of averages can't be repealed.

   "That's what we have insurance for," said my wife.

   "But insurance doesn't guarantee life.  Statistics show that--"

   "Statistics show you can kill yourself tripping over the cat or having a brick fall on your head.  There's danger in everything.  But you can't be immobilized by risk.  If you stayed home and just sat you'd eventually die, too--of starvation."

   That's another thing that worries me--losing arguments.

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