{"id":1490,"date":"2009-04-07T12:27:05","date_gmt":"2009-04-07T18:27:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michaelhyatt.com\/2009\/04\/worry-and-imagination-two-sides-of-the-same-coin.html"},"modified":"2009-04-07T12:27:05","modified_gmt":"2009-04-07T18:27:05","slug":"worry-and-imagination-two-sides-of-the-same-coin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fullfocus.co\/worry-and-imagination-two-sides-of-the-same-coin\/","title":{"rendered":"Worry and Imagination: Two Sides of the Same Coin?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I couldn\u2019t sleep last night. I tossed and turned. I kept checking the clock, knowing that morning would soon arrive. I finally got up a little after 4:00 a.m.<\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/p>\n

Photo courtesy of \u00a9iStockphoto.com\/AcePixure<\/div>\n

The problem was not that I was worried. The problem was that I was having a creative brainstorm. I was thinking about a new way to market books. (I\u2019m a publisher, after all.) My brain was going a mile a minute.<\/p>\n

I have had plenty of nights where worry kept me up. You probably have, too. I have lain awake many a night, anxious about my kids, my health, my job\u2014you name it. I have worried about it all. In fact, if worry were an Olympic event, I would have a Gold Medal.<\/p>\n

And all for naught.<\/p>\n

In Andy Andrews new book, The Noticer<\/a>, the main character, Jones, says to another character, Walker,<\/p>\n

Forty percent of the things you worry about will never occur…. Thirty percent of the things you worry about are things that have already happened\u2014in the past. And all the worry in the world ain\u2019t gonna change what\u2019s already<\/em> happened, right?\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Walker agrees and Jones continues,<\/p>\n

Twelve percent of all worries have to do with needless imaginings about our health. My leg hurts. Do I have cancer? My head hurts. Do I have a tumor? My daddy died of a heart attack when he was sixty, and I\u2019m fifty-nine<\/em>…. Ten percent would be petty-little-nothing worries about what other people think.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He then concludes,<\/p>\n

So if my math is right, that leaves eight percent…. Eight percent for legitimate concerns … these legitimate concerns are things that can actually be dealt with. Most people spend so much time fearing the things that are never going to happen or can\u2019t be controlled that they have no energy to deal with the few things they can actually handle (pp. 54, 55).\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As I got up this morning, I realized how very similar worry and imagination really are. Both of them involve visualizing the future.<\/em><\/span> In a sense, worry is simply an unproductive use of imagination.<\/p>\n

But the differences between them are also profound:<\/p>\n