Very recently, I was made aware of a quote from Walt Disney: "Worry is a waste of imagination." Now, he may have been paraphrasing Dan Zadra, who said that "Worry is a misuse of imagination," or maybe Dan Zadra was paraphrasing Disney, but regardless of who said it first, I think there's some truth to it.
Worrying doesn't accomplish much. Sure, some anticipation of potential problems can be helpful in planning, but once you've done about as much planning as is practical, any additional worrying is just a nonproductive expense of mental energy. Walt Disney also said, "If you've done the very best you can, worrying won't make it any better."
We have better ways to spend our mental energy than by imagining unpleasant scenarios. We can instead imagine encouraging outcomes, which can inspire us to put in the effort to make them real. The mental images we create can become self-fulfilling prophecies, for better or for worse, so why fill our minds with mental images we don't want to see made real? Worrying like that is a waste and a misuse of our imaginations, especially when we could be visualizing success instead.
No comments:
Post a Comment