On worrying

I worry a lot. I used to blame it on an over-active imagination; but the deeper truth is I do not have enough of it. I lacked the true creativity, that simple willingness to be open to the tiniest window of opportunity, which makes a difference. I pride myself a methodical person- detail oriented, logical and precise. When in actuality I am merely a Scrooge of faith, miser of hope, sycophant to the majority, and slave to statistics. As I mature, I have unwittingly pledged my allegiance to practicality, I offered fealty to common sense. As a result, I reduced myself to the peanut gallery, securing my membership within the hoi polloi. Gone are the days when I delight in the unknown. I no longer see every uncertainty as a doorway to wonderment and enlightenment. If optimism is a strand of DNA, then the telomere of my particular strand has been severely shortened.

Over the years I have come to realize this: pessimism exists because as we grow older, we perceive our options to be limited, or rather the time and ability to search for alternatives is insufficient. Therefore we take comfort in certainty, we abide to the “gold standards”, and we take stock in the benchmark. So much so that when we are affronted with something beyond our realms of experience, we become stumped. We are horrified because our library does not seem to carry anything that specifically addresses the situation we are in. Our repertoire incomplete, and instead of trying to build upon what we know, we become fixated on what we don’t know. This scares us, immobilizes us, and gives more credence to the threat because now our ego comes into question.

We have allowed ourselves to become like rubber. Early in our inception, our plasticity is great. However, as time goes by, repeated use and constant exposure to the elements have weathered us into stiff erasers that no longer wipe away efficiently. We taint our slate with previous mistakes, black smudges all over. Consequently, we cannot start anew. Yet life is about starting anew. It is about being flexible to the ever changing tides, and finding new ways to adapt. It is about writing our stories in sand, and watch as the waves come in and collect it, adding it to the sea of collective narrative. We cannot be frustrated by it; instead we should rejoice that we are given a canvass that contains no end to the possibility on what we can draw upon it. Only when we release ourselves from the confines of physics, can we be free. Our imagination must stretch beyond the beaches and yearn for the horizons where the sky and ocean meet. When confronted with a problem, we are not erasers; our goal is not to remove it. The tides with come soon enough to render it insufficient. Ours is to play in the sand, and marvel at what we can do with it.