Doubt Worry Fear & The Economy

Hello All,

Got to musing today about the current trend... we are all working harder and getting less. I don't care if you are in a secular job or a non-profit job. It may be in the form of a pay cut, a benefit loss, time off without pay, your co-worker being downsized, your 401K match went poof. The general mood is not a good one that's for sure. Panic and fear seems to be taking root in a lot of the minds of the people around me. I have to be careful because fear is contagious. In my way of thinking fear is bad.

It's easy to let fear take root. I think that fear starts with doubt. When you have doubt about something you start obsessing. For example, if I doubt that the economy will get better, I will start thinking about it all the time. If I doubt I can keep up with extra work load, I will starting thinking about that as well. If I doubt that I can pay my bills that's a meltdown waiting to happen. Doubt starts harassing most of my thoughts. So then this doubt moves into a new category which I call worry.

When it hits the worry phase, things go down hill fast. Worry causes stress and anxiety. Then when I'm stressed and worried I really can't keep up with the work load. It would be easy to find myself not sleeping laying awake worrying. No sleep = more stress and sometimes immune system weakening which leads to getting sick, yucky! Worry is draining and time consuming.

If left unchecked the doubt and worry move decisively into the fear category. A full blown panic attack can occur when we realize that everything around us is in a full scale downward spiral. We go to work wondering if this is the day we might lose our job. We fear that our car will breakdown and we won't have the money to fix it. We fear that our bills will cause us to default. We fear other things as well.

So what can we do about all of this? First, we must learn to stop the worrying so it doesn't keep progressing. This isn't always easy but it is well worth the effort. Maybe our co-worker does get laid off and we have more work as a result. Should we worry about it? Well, can you change the situation? If not, try to keep positive and tell yourself you will do your best to adapt. Keep your chin up, so to speak. Resist all temptations to to say negative things about what you are dealing with. Try to find a positive spin on things. This is difficult, I know this from personal experience. Let's all try to keep positive and banish the negative thoughts, they lead to too much stress.