Worry is claimed to be wholly useless, since it neither alters the future nor prepares for it.
The maxim is used as a corrective to rumination; the part it does not describe is anticipatory thinking, which does drive preparation. The clinical distinction is between worry that terminates in a plan and worry that recirculates, and the second is what the advice usefully targets. Stated as a blanket claim it also instructs people to feel bad about feeling bad.
In practice
- A team that worried about the failure mode and wrote a contingency was not wasting the worry.
- A person turning the same unresolvable question over for the fourth hour is doing something different from planning.
- Possible explanations
- The explanation offered is that worry cannot alter the future, so it is waste. The clinical distinction is different: worry that terminates in a plan prepares, and worry that recirculates impairs.
- In its favour
- The advice is sound for rumination, which predicts worse outcomes, and the maxim is useful as a corrective to it.
- Against it
- Worry is associated with problem-solving and preparation at moderate levels and with impairment at high ones, so the relationship is not the flat one the maxim asserts, and its evidence is testimonial and selected on success.
- Standing
- Testimonial evidence selected on success, with no comparison group. Worry is associated with problem-solving and preparation at moderate levels and with impairment at high ones, so the relationship is not the flat one the maxim asserts.
- Subject
- Psychology & Behavior
- Essay
- Moralists, aphorists and the self-help tradition