I’m laying in my bed. It’s pitch black and my roommate is sleeping. It’s 1:09 am. I have to be up in 7 hours to study some more for two exams. My first college exams. I should know this stuff. It’s all multiple choice, can’t be that hard right? There’s fifty questions. That means I can miss…wait what’s 30 divided by 50…so that’s a D…no I have to get an A, but it’s the first exam, they drop the lowest grade. I’ll be okay with a B, but I really want an A, start out strong right? I have to get 40 out of 50 then, so I can miss no more than 10 questions. 1:45. I won’t even have 7 hours of sleep. It’s okay, I’ll just go to Starbucks and get coffee and study, but the lines are always so long, I’ll leave at 8:00, so then I have to get up at 7:30, which means I have less than 6 hours of sleep. 1:53. GO TO SLEEP. I don’t think I’ve ever been so wide awake in my life. Have my eyes ever been this wide…ew what’s that on the ceiling? What’s that chanting in the distance? What…what are they saying? I wonder what they did tonight, probably not study for 4 hours like me. Ugh! I should have started studying sooner. STOP. STOP. There’s nothing you can do about it now. I’ll get what I get and do better next time right? 2:11. WHAT! GO TO SLEEP GO TO SLEEP GO TO SLEEP. Wait I can’t forget…oh no did I remember to go over the…no I need to just close my eyes and sleep, there’s nothing I can do. I could just look over those other couple of readings, no I’ll wake up my roommate. 2:57 I just need sleep. I won’t even remember everything because I studied all last minute. Why do I do this? I need to sleep. NOW.
After nearly two hours of this. The next morning I wake up and drag myself out of bed and to my exams like a zombie. I did not wake up in time for Starbucks or more studying. I wasted two hours of quality time worrying about something that was only getting worse by worrying. Not only does worrying not take away tomorrow’s struggles, it makes them worse. I have learned my lesson, I will not procrastinate, but MORE importantly I will not waste time worrying. It’s a poison.
Worrying makes worries worse by wasting time worthlessly worrying.
Worrying is like sitting in a rocking chair, it gives you something to do but it doesn’t get you anywhere.
Worrying doesn’t change the outcome of anything.
A day of worrying is more exhausting than a week of work.