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.