Don't Worry, Be Happy

I bet you didn't know that Bobby McFerrin was a success coach did you? Well he was! Way back in 1988 when he sang the song "Don't Worry, Be Happy" he wasn't just singing a catch acappella song, he was giving advice on how to be live a successful life.

Not that I've lived an extremely long time yet (I'm only 25 after all), but in my lifetime I've come to learn through my own experience as well as by watching others that worrying about something, anything, never does anything to help the situation. But so many people worry about things all the time anyway. Are you one of them? It's okay, I used to too! But no more, I've stepped into the light and realized that if I can't change something or I don't know what's going to happen and there's no way I'll know until it happens, then there's no point in worrying about it either. Seriously, what's the point of worrying about something you can't do anything about? All that you accomplish by worrying is to make yourself upset, scared, apprehensive, (fill in whatever other crappy feeling you want here), and if you talk to others about things you worry about then you are influencing them to feel negative emotions as well! But did any of that worrying help the situation? Nope. So all you did by worrying is make yourself feel bad and probably influence someone else to feel bad also. So if I'm doing my math right, that means you just hurt yourself and someone else and didn't get anything good out of it and neither did anyone else AND the situation didn't change even one bit. So you aren't just back to where you started from, you're worse off than when you started! Why on Earth would anyone want to do that?!?!? It makes absolutely no sense...

However, it's not enough simply to understand this principle at an intellectual level - you have to internalize it and actually make your part of your standard operating procedure for all situations you encounter in your life that you can't do anything about. I'm sorry that I can't tell you how to do that, you just have to do it. The way I started doing it is by praying the prayer "God please grant me the courage to change the things I can and should change, the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, and the wisdom to know the difference. Amen." It's worked for me, it'll probably work for you too. Once you do finally get this down, you will not believe how much better you feel about your life! There are so many things that you have no control over, but when you realize that worrying or getting upset about those things will only hurt you and won't help the situation so you just let it go (and "give it to God" as I like to put it, just let Him handle it His way and in His time), you will have such an amazing feeling of peace and contentment... You'll wonder why it took you so long to come to your senses. I hope you get there soon...the more people that realize this, the better place this world will be...