Why Worry?
George Lincoln Walton, 1908
Why is the advice “don’t worry” so rarely useful? In 1908 Boston neurologist George Walton broke worry down into two habits of mind that can be trained. The book is about how to stop rechecking, winding yourself up and getting angry over small things, starting with the simplest exercises.
Who it is for
For people who fret over small things, check what they have already done several times over, and cannot fall asleep because of their thoughts, when the advice “don’t worry” does not help.
If we want to, we can choose our thoughts the way we choose our company.
Advice That Does Not Work
Imagine telling a person who has never learned to walk any other way that they must stop walking clumsily. The advice is right, but it cannot be carried out. Boston neurologist George Walton believed that saying “don’t worry” is just as useless. Many guidelines on this subject have been written, but a person who is worried finds nothing in them to take hold of.
In 1908 Walton published the book “Why Worry?” He took his definition from Webster’s dictionary: worry is a state of excessive concern. Everything depends on the word “excessive”. Care about a task, about loved ones, about bread for the family is normal. Trouble starts where a thought takes up more room than its subject deserves.
Walton looks at worry as both a doctor and a coach. It is a habit of mind, and a habit is not cancelled by one decision, just as nobody performs a hard gymnastic exercise on the first try. It is broken into simple parts and trained every day. He honestly warns that there will be no sudden cure. The aim is to gain a little today, and if you lose a little today, to win it back tomorrow.
Next you will learn which two habits of mind, in Walton’s view, make up worry, why a fifth check of a lock only strengthens doubt, and what to do with thoughts that keep you from sleeping. Walton opened the book with the words of the Chinese sage Zhuangzi: the stork has long legs, the duck has short ones, and neither can be changed. So why worry?
Aim at the Wish, Not at the Worry
Walton starts with a simple observation. Almost any worry is held up by a too insistent thought. The thought comes back again and again, and from repetition its subject swells. If day after day you think about a longed-for car, it pushes everything else aside and for a while becomes the most important thing in the world. There is no fear here, but there is worry.
The train is late, and you fidget in your seat. Walton advises asking yourself where the anxiety comes from. Not from the train, but from the insistent thought “I have to get there on time”. You work with that thought, because it is specific, while worry is elusive. Most often it turns out that the arrival time is not that important. And if a truly important meeting is going to be missed, Walton suggests telling yourself: everyone is entitled to one such day in life, so why not today?
His favourite example concerns the weather. On a hot day a man sits by the window, wiping his brow and suffering. Suddenly a runaway horse dashes past. He runs out to look and for several minutes cannot remember whether he is hot or cold. The heat has not changed; what the mind is busy with has. Hence the book’s main method: one thought is driven out only by another. Do not talk yourself into “don’t think about it”, but occupy your head and hands with something else.
Walton insists on the order of training too. Start with small things: the weather, a late train, a queue. The method is the same as for big troubles, and the calm you learn over the weather later helps you bear real blows more easily.
He draws the line straight away. An insistent thought about having to feed the family is not counted as a sickness, and someone who managed to throw it out of their head in order to play ball is also making a mistake. The point is only about excess.
About the author
George Lincoln Walton was an American neurologist and a consultant at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. He wrote popular books on how to cope with worry.
All books by this author: George Lincoln Walton
Terms from the book
- Neurologist
- Zhuangzi
- Dickens
- Tiffany
- Richardson
- Neurasthenia
- Webster: Noah Webster (1758-1843), American lexicographer. For many years his dictionary of the English language was the main one in the United States, and Walton took his definition of worry from it.
- Irving: Washington Irving (1783-1859), American writer, author of “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”.
- Howe: Julia Ward Howe (1819-1910), American writer and public figure, author of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”. Walton quotes her memory of the dinner in Dickens’s honour.
- Obsession: Walton’s word (obsession in English): a thought, habit or urge that demands its way too insistently. In the book it describes a habit of mind, not a diagnosis.
- Hypochondria: Excessive worry about one’s own health and constant attention to sensations in the body. This is how Walton defines it.
- Aurelius: Marcus Aurelius (121-180), Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher, author of the notes known in English as “Meditations”. Walton devoted a separate chapter to him.
- Field guide: A reference book used to find the name of a plant or animal from its features.
- Bladder campion: A wild plant with white flowers and a swollen calyx. In his example Walton identifies it with a field guide.
All terms
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