In life, many things require our attention. We have dreams to achieve. We have bills to pay. We have expectations. We have targets to meet at the end of a period and sometimes, we, unfortunately, have to trade a piece of our peace to worry about how all such can be attained.

Indeed, a lot of issues can give us a headache. It may be us fighting for our life. It may be the loss of a loved one. It may even be a debt to pay. Though there may be many bills to pay, worrying about how to get them paid becomes an extra bill. Becoming worried drains you of your energy and makes matters worse than they were before.

It is always hard not to get worried about a situation at hand but we must always know that worry is an expense. It is an extra debt we pay for no work done. Worry is an energy-sapping exercise that yields more problems than solutions!

Every problem has a root. Solving it means finding solutions to this root. If we can’t find (or don’t’ have) such, worrying about them is not the way to go. Worry only fans into flames the problems. At the end of the day, we get all worked up while the problem still sits where it has always sat.

If you can’t find the way around a mountain in your life, it is obvious that worrying about it will hinder how soon you find that way. Worry hijacks our thinking faculties. It blinds us from seeing a solution even if it passes by. Every problem is like a mathematical problem. There is always a solution!

Back in high school, to avert our worries, we were taught how to use BODMAS to solve some mathematical problems. Ironically, worry is so much like BODMAS.

Worry puts a BRACKET around OUR joy!

When a man is worried, he is barely happy. Joy takes a vacation in his life. He has no liberty. Worry is the only way our problems can hold us captive. It is the only medium through which we can get stressed about what we can’t even solve at that point in time.

Worry is restrictive. It limits our happiness. We can’t live our life to the fullest if we are always worried about a recurring problem in our lives. When we hand over the key of our joy to worry, we live all our lives worked up over what we can really not change.

Every man should know what they can change in their life and what they can’t. If you could change it, worry would have been your last option. If you can change it, worrying about it will only amplify it.

No man is without a headache. We all have a mountain in our lives. These worries can be a shackle in our lives. No matter how much freedom we may have, if we don’t take hold of our joy, our problems will be our slave master!

Worry DIVIDES our attention!

A worried man is a divided man. A man of many worries has little or no attention for anything. He spends a chunk of his time trying to change what he has little power over while what he could actually change is left to rot.

Worry takes our attention because it is time-consuming. We are never able to make headway when we are lost in thoughts over an issue. Worry only walks into our lives when we have reached the dead end of a situation. This means that the more we worry about that situation, the more we are heading nowhere because it is a dead end!

When we are drowned in worry, we are not able to focus on what really matters. When our attention is divided among so many things because we are bowing to the worries of our lives, we are not able to achieve our targets while our existing problems never get solved either.

Instead of giving attention to worry, pay more attention to prayers. Telling man your problems is called worry. Telling God those problems is prayer. Prayer and worry can’t coexist. The more we pray, the less we worry and the less we pray… your guess is as good as mine.

Worry MULTIPLIES our sorrows!

I have encountered people who are still wallowing in sorrow after losing a loved one many years ago. You see, worry always seems like a short-term solution to our pain but in the long-term, it ruins us. It leaves us stuck in our trails. It renders us unproductive and leaves us in the past when everybody else has moved on.

Worry is a multiplier of sorrows. It makes us cry over and over again over spilt milk which can’t be ever recollected. Worry makes us age faster. It makes us prone to diseases because we don’t even eat well. More worries now means more problems later.

Let go of the pain. Stop worrying about the mistakes of your past. You may have messed up some opportunities but that’s okay. Move on. The more worried you get about the past, the more likely it is that you will make similar mistakes in the future. Move on! Move on!!

Worry ADDS up to our problems!

Having a problem is a headache. Worrying about it doubles that headache. When we are engrossed in our worry, we add up more problems to what already exists. Worrying about a thing always has a way of attracting even more things that can get you more worried.

Worry brings fear. Next, it brings in anxiety. Before you know, you may have to battle a whole army of uncomfortable side effects that include hypertension, irritability, nausea and rapid breathing among others. Wherever there is worry, there are even more problems!

No matter which mountain anyone faces, they should know that worry is not one of the ways to go around such. If worrying about a mountain could remove it, there would have been no mountain ever in anyone’s life!

Worry SUBSTRACTS from our peace of mind!

Worry is like a piece of mine dug into our peace of mind. It ruins it. It destabilizes us and makes us restless. When a man is always worried, he has no peace. He barely sleeps soundly. His mind is always wandering in places that will yield no productivity.

We all should note that worry is a threat to our peace. It saps a lot out of us without yielding any results. A worried mind is a disturbed one and there is no peace wherever there is a disturbance.

Guard your space. Worry is toxic. It can drain all the energy inside of you. It can pollute your environment. Stay off worry as much as you can!

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Kobina Ansah is a Ghanaian playwright and Chief Scribe of Scribe Communications (www.scribecommltd.com), an Accra-based writing firm. His new play, THE BOY CALLED A GIRL, shows on July 20th at National Theatre. Call 0269654873 for details.