Reality Check: Speaking of Superpowers

At a home decor store recently, I found something that I thought would amuse my friend. The store features inspirational feel-good products, like signs that tell us to “Live, Laugh, Love.” I chose an item with this message: “Worrying about things over which I have no control is my superpower.”
Well, turns out that lots of people seem to have this superpower!
Or at least, the message resonated with more folks than I’d expected. Not only is worrying a real thing, but so often it is indeed focused on things over which we have no control.
We can always find reasons for worry. And if you like to take action, solve problems, get things done, then you may already be handling the things over which you do have control. There’s no need to worry and fret about them; you’re dealing with them. The solutions may not be perfect or complete, but when you know what to do, there’s less incentive to sit and fret. You just handle it.
But there so many places where we don’t have control. Or we have limited control. Or we think we should have control, but we truly don’t.
Those “no control” areas often involve other people. If someone we love is having trouble, making poor decisions, or making the same mistakes over and over, we might want to help, offer advice or money or other assistance.
Thus, we can fool ourselves into thinking we have control. However, reality tells us that it’s the other person who chooses. They choose whether to accept our goodhearted offerings, and if they do, whether they will use them as intended. That doesn’t always work out as we hope, does it?
Some of our out-of-control items are truly out of our control. They may involve illnesses or accidents. They may involve distances from loved ones that cannot be overcome in any practical way. They may involve lost friendships or missed opportunities that will never come again.
In addition, now that we have relatively easy access to information from so many sources, we may also expand our worrying to include global issues: war, peace, politicians who do everything wrong, environment, climate, society. Depending on the influences we choose to allow into our lives, we could be living with the perception that everything is rapidly headed downhill. It might even be in a handbasket, if you remember the old saying.
Perhaps you think your worrying is doing no harm. Maybe you believe it’s even doing good, using the rationale that if no one worries, nothing will ever change! Personally, I doubt the effectiveness of worry as a problem-solving mechanism, but if you see it as working for you, then you have that choice.
However, here’s a question that may be worth considering, “Does my worrying steal joy from my life?” And a follow-up: “If so, is that what I want?”
If you have this superpower of worrying about the uncontrollable and you’re finding that it’s not bringing much satisfaction to your life, then you might be interested in what Dr. Glasser, in his Choice Theory Chart, calls “Organized Behaviours.”
These are the behaviours that we’ve used before. Even if they don’t work all that well, we know them, we’re comfortable with them, we can call on them and immediately they come!
For example, an organized behaviour for some people could be to let loose with an outburst of anger. It’s right there, no thinking required. For others, withdrawing may be a behaviour ready to be used whenever things get tough. And then, there’s worrying. Even when things are apparently going well, when you have a quiet moment, the worry behaviour can pop up. Things are too quiet. Should I be worried?
Next time, we’ll revisit this superpower and see whether we can find effective ways to deal with it. In the meantime, tell me: do you worry over things you can’t realistically control? How do you handle that?