Have You Tried Just Not Worrying About It?

If our thoughts are actually shaping our world, why would we want to be focused on fear?

Does anybody else worry about everything all the time? Like, everything. All. The. Time. 

I think it’s bad. 

So, I recently moved across the country, to another state. For about a month before I moved, I was up all night, every night. Until 3 or 4am, just paralyzed by stress, and fear, and anxiety. I could not sleep. 

I actually really like moving across the country, and I’ve done it several times. So you might be thinking that it’s normal to be nervous or whatever… It wasn’t that. I get more excited about those things, than nervous. 

I was up all night, sacrificing my sleep, absolutely worried sick over what would happen if I got called for jury duty in my previous state, after I had moved, but before I updated my new driver’s license. And if that happened, I wasn’t really sure what to do or how to resolve that. What a random fucking thing to be worried about. I don’t even know where that thought came from. Who even thinks to worry about that? Literally, are you trying to be miserable? 

Ok, so flash forward about two months. You will never guess what I received in the mail. Or if you can see where this is going, you probably can guess. I got a jury summons from the court of my previous state, addressed to my new house in a completely different state. It wasn’t forwarded, either. It was addressed to me IN MY NEW STATE. I have a picture of it somewhere, because I couldn’t believe it. 

It actually really freaks me out though, because I feel like I made that happen. I spent hours and hours of mental energy focused just on this one bizarre situation, and I don’t think it is that common of a thing? My guess is that I updated my driver’s license right around the time the previous state was selecting jurors. I don’t know how it works, I just kind of assume that it’s automated, because everything seems automated these days. 

By the way, it was actually SUPER simple to resolve. They asked me for “official mail” to prove my new address was out of the court’s jurisdiction. And I sent them the jury summons. The guy was like, “yup, you are obviously excused.” That was it. That was the big issue that I spent many nights agonizing over. 

Also, I lived in New York City for eight years. I think I left about six or seven years ago. My old roommate still happens to live in the apartment we shared while I was there. A couple months after my jury duty situation, she tells me that she received some kind of questionnaire for me to fill out as like a prerequisite kind of thing before they send a jury summons. Mind you, at this point, I have moved states twice since living in NYC. I have no idea why they still have my address on file, since I’ve changed my license multiple times since living there. (Actually I have no clue how it works. I thought it all went through the DMV registration, but maybe that’s not accurate.) 

That is when I actually became very freaked out. Are you kidding? It seems too coincidental for me not to believe that I “manifested” this, or “prayed” for it. Putting out all of this energy over the most ridiculous “problem,” seems to have made it happen. I don’t want to be inviting situations I don’t want into my life. I don’t want all of my worries to become reality. Which brings me to my new life mantra… “Have you tried just not worrying about it?” 

Have you ever met one of those people who is never worried about anything, ever? Doesn’t seem to get stressed out over anything? Or at the very least, doesn’t get stressed out over small things? And stuff always seems to work out for those people! Of course someone like that isn’t going to be worried about anything. They have no evidence that they SHOULD worry about stuff! 

This is probably a topic for another time, but I think social media has really inflated a lot of people’s sense of doom and danger. In a way that it wasn’t, before you could see the whole life story of millions of people all over the world. My feed is constantly informing me of young people with cancer, or rare conditions, car accidents, house fires, etc. Don’t get me wrong, I understand why those people would share their stories, and I’m sure they are very helpful for people going through similar challenges. I just don’t think we are supposed to know about every bad situation happening to someone who lives across the globe. It makes everything seem so much more prevalent, like at any moment, disaster could strike. 

I suppose that’s true, but it seems like it has led to people taking fewer risks. And oh my gosh, everybody and their dog seems to have anxiety these days. How is that not connected? If our thoughts are actually shaping our world, why would we want to be focused on fear? What if we are not passively experiencing our lives, what if we are subconsciously programming it?  Have you tried just not worrying about it?