Dr. Ellen Langer

Most of us are using yesterday's solutions to solve today's problems.

now you know people are afraid um you know to to um just let things be because they think there are good things and bad things and i have to jump over you know fences or kill people do whatever i have to do to get those good things and to avoid the bad but things in and of themselves are neither good nor bad and when you fully recognize that then

If this interview goes well, wonderful.

If this interview doesn't, wonderful.

It doesn't matter.

There'll be other reasons.

If it doesn't go well, then that will free up some time in some fashion.

I'll have learned something that'll make the other one, the next one, even bigger and what have you.

You see what I'm saying?

The idea, people, by believing there are things that are good and things that are bad, set themselves up for all sorts of stress, for example.

No, it's a very important question, and I don't know that I have the right answer.

I would say, though, that telling yourself that the world is falling apart, that we're on our way to a dictatorship, whatever things that are going to keep you up at night is not serving any purpose.

So do something about it.

Whether that means finding places to donate money, to do some work, to elect officials that have the same views as you, and so on.

But if you're doing nothing but worrying, worrying is a waste of time.

I have a few one-liners about worrying.

The first one is,

You should ask yourself, which is not the case here, is it a tragedy or an inconvenience?

And you're talking about potential tragedies.

But most of the things we worry about are just inconveniences.