According to
the Bureau of Standards, "A dense fog covering seven city
blocks, to a depth of 100 feet, is composed of
something less than one glass of water." So, if all the fog
covering seven city blocks, 100 feet deep, were collected and
held in a single drinking glass, it would not even fill it. And
this could be compared to our worries. If we can see into the
future and if we could see our problems in their true light,
they wouldn't tend to blind us to the world, to living itself,
but instead could be relegated to their true size and place. And
if all the things most people worry about were reduced to their
true size, you could probably put them all into a drinking
glass, too.
It's a
well-established fact that as we get older, we worry less. With
the passing of the years and the problems each of them yields,
we learn that most of our worries are not really worth bothering
ourselves about too much and that we can manage to solve the
important ones.
But to younger
people, they often find their lives obscured by the fog of
worry. Yet, here's an authoritative estimate of what most people
worry about.
-
Things that never happen: 40 percent. That
is, 40 percent of the things you worry about will never
occur anyway.
-
Things over and past that can't be changed by
all the worry in the world: 30 percent.
-
Needless worries about our health: 12
percent.
-
Petty, miscellaneous worries: 10 percent.
-
Real, legitimate worries: 8 percent. Only 8
percent of your worries are worth concerning yourself about.
Ninety-two percent are pure fog with no substance at all.
Source:
The Essence
of Success
by Earl Nightingale. Edited by Carson V. Conant.
Learn more about
Earl Nightingale
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