What? Me Worry?

My Mother, God bless her, was an inveterate worrier. My Dad and I would often remark that when she had nothing to worry about she would worry that she had missed something she ought to be worrying about. With hindsight, this was probably not helpful. In fact I think that today Mum would have been diagnosed as suffering from anxiety, a condition experienced by nearly 5% of the UK population, but back in the days I'm referring to people worried rather than suffered from anxiety.

And in the 1960's, my Mum had plenty to worry about, largely it has to be said, about money because my Dad rarely had a secure or long term job. A French polisher by trade, my Dad would frequently start a new job on a Monday only to be handed his cards by Friday. During the decade that began with the building of the Berlin Wall and ended with the first moon landings, my Dad had so many jobs that Mum had to keep a notebook of employers, start and finish dates, pay and the like in order to be able to fill out his tax return, and when Dad dropped a cast iron letter box on his foot and broke his toe,  he was off work for weeks with virtually no money coming in. So I guess there were times when, by any definition of the word, we were living in poverty, not that I was aware of it, it wasn't a concept my ten year old self had heard of let alone could grasp. In later years my Mum told me how much she had to scrimp to put food on the table and pay the rent, and how much of a worry that was. That probably influenced her in the last few years of her life, when even though she had enough money to live comfortably if not in luxury, she would worry about spending her savings.

When my Dad gave up polishing in favour of more stable occupations (he was a school caretaker and later, storeman for firm of pneumatic engineers) and my Mum went to work for a firm of solicitors as a shorthand-typist, money was less of an issue, but Mum found other things to worry about, principally me it seemed, especially when I went out. Like any normal teenager I would go out with friends, but whereas they seemed to be able to divert from a previously made arrangement and do something off the cuff, I could not, particularly if this meant staying out longer than planned, because Mum would enter panic mode if I was home even five minutes later than I had originally said I would be. Over the years this caused me to cancel or not even bother with arrangements to go out, especially if they were spontaneous arrangements; the hassle, particularly if events overran, was just not worth the bother.

I suppose that this has driven my almost obsessive approach to timekeeping. I abhor being late but even above that I cannot abide being late when it is me and me alone that has imposed a deadline. I guess that most people have a slight concern about being late when they have a plane to catch, but I tend to fret about being late to do something as trivial as going to the shops once I have decided that I will go at a particular time. Unfortunately I have inherited some of my Mum's traits when it comes to worrying. Rationally I can see them for what they are; most of the time they are baseless and not worth consuming thoughts with, but that does not mean that I will not worry about them.

Most people will have heard the famous Serenity Prayer:

 " God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

The courage to change the things I can,

And the wisdom to know the difference."

Huh! Is all I can say to that. To me there is no difference between something I can change and something I cannot; I will worry about each equally. I even worry about things that may not even happen (and what a total waste of time and energy that is). For instance, let's say you apply for a job. You send off your application and wait to hear if you have got an interview. Meanwhile you get on with your life. I, on the other hand, start to obsess the moment the application has been sent. Here's a short list of the things that I will worry about:

• What happens if I get an interview and it's at an awkward time?
• What time should I leave to get to the interview?
• How should I get there?
• What do I say when I get there, how do I introduce myself?
• If I get the job, I wonder where my desk will be? And where the toilets are? And how will I get my system access on the computer set up? What time train should I get on my first day? What if I'm late? What are the names of the other people and will I remember them? 

I do not worry about whether I will get an interview, you will notice, although inside I am praying that I don't because then I don't have to worry. Whether I get an interview or not is genuinely beyond my control, I cannot worry about that. And I do not worry about the interview itself (should I get one), which is probably not a good thing as it leaves me unprepared and in a sort of self fulfilling prophecy, I confidently expect to fail...and do. All that worry about trivia such as where is the stationery cupboard becomes irrelevant and exhaustingly time wasting.

Oh, and I can worry by proxy quite nicely too, thanks very much. Let's say it is a family member who has applied for a job, not me. All of the worries that I listed above will pass back and forth through my mind even though it isn't me who may have an interview and may eventually have to make that commute and find that stationery cupboard.

Anxiety can be a debilitating condition and I don't mean to make light of it, especially since I don't think I am a sufferer (I am writing that because I am worried that people who genuinely suffer from anxiety may be offended or upset by my potentially making light of it), but I am a worrier, and like my Mum I will occasionally worry that I have nothing to worry about. I suppose I am by no means unique in having had periods of my life when everything seems to be going according to plan but still I worry that there is something around the corner or something that I have not thought of that will give me something to worry about.

The strange thing is that I rarely worry about the really big issues, assuming I cannot influence them. After last Friday's tragic events in Paris, you might expect me to be worried about a repeat in London that might affect me, my family or friends, but I'm not (well, not unduly) because I can do little or nothing about it. There are some things that are genuinely not possible to worry about, such is their enormity and our inability to influence them. 

Maybe there's something in that Serenity Prayer after all.