✨Worry Less: A Simple, Daily Practice to a Brighter Future
✨When I ask veteran homeschool parents on Tried & True Homeschooling what they would do different, the most common answer is “I’d worry less.”
I’ve always been a worrier—especially when it comes to my kids. Then one Substack post sparked a reply from
that offered a way out.It was simple. It was beautiful. It was special.
In the following guest post, Tracey shares a simple, daily practice to ease worry—and then shows how she’s woven it into her own life, culminating in 10 personal reasons why she chooses not to worry.
Tracey writes from the heart and from her faith—but no matter where you fall on the spirituality spectrum, this is worth reading.
Tracey also homeschooled her kids, making her the perfect person to teach us.
I hope you’ll try her idea out for your own, and I hope it brings you comfort.
If you’d like to read more from Tracey, you can find her HERE at her Substack.
One Hundred Reasons and Counting: My Case against Worry by Tracey Taylor
I doubt anyone would ever say that being a worrier is ideal.
In fact, this habit we have of worrying, of fretting, brooding, and ruminating, has caused many of us and those around us a great deal of suffering. I for one have wished many, many times that I could be rid of it.
I often considered how to make that break. Along with about 25 million other people, I read Richard Carlson’s Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff, and found it delightfully bracing, like a cup of cool water. I explored the straightforward methods of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and added some of those anti-anxiety tools to my tool belt. As a student of the Bible, I read the words of Paul—“Be anxious for nothing”—and pondered the words of Jesus—“Take no thought for tomorrow”—and felt a stirring, a calling even, to step onto a path that was wonderful and more than a little wild, like Peter stepping out of the boat onto the sea.
Yet I went on clinging to worry like some weird, prickly security blanket. “At least I’m on my toes,” I thought. “At least I’m being realistic.” “At least I won’t be caught off guard when catastrophe strikes.” There is a kind of logic to worry, as there is to all flawed thinking; but it’s not a logic that holds up to truth or reason or wisdom.
Maybe this was what finally compelled me to list reasons in my fight against chronic fretting. Early one morning after a fitful night, without yet solving a single problem that had disturbed my sleep, I picked up my iPad and opened a new document. I titled it, “One Hundred Reasons Not to Worry,” and I started a list. Fortified even by this small beginning, I decided to see if I could go an entire day without worrying. At day’s end, I would write about how it went. And if that worked out, I would do the same thing on the day after, and the day after that.
Maybe it was because the worries and cares of my life had reached their tipping point. Maybe it was simply a gift of grace. But that first day went better than expected. Of course, I caught myself turning onto the worry path dozens of times throughout the day, but somehow I was able to redirect and stay the course. I kept it up for a week. My body still felt the tension and low-level anxiety I’d grown used to, but I decided to ignore that; if my mind could learn to run in healthier tracks, maybe my body would follow. Eventually, it did. I kept going.
A year and a half later, I’m still going, and that’s a remarkable thing to me. I know what a formidable foe anxiety is, how resistant it can be to treatment and change. I can’t be sure that the struggle won’t return to me in the future, and I don’t believe what I’m doing is a magic bullet that will work for everyone or even always for me.
But there’s one thing this little experiment has taught me: I have lost nothing by letting worry go.
And without worry, I’ve gained even more than I expected.
There’s now room in my mind for better things to grow. I’m calmer, more cheerful, better organized, less forgetful. I sleep better, so I think and work better through the day. My interactions with loved ones are less fraught, more hopeful and playful; I hope I’m becoming a safer person to confide in, someone who can help bear others’ burdens without adding my own fears to them.
As I predicted, it didn’t take long to reach and even surpass 100 reasons not to worry, and I continue to add to them and revisit them every day. I’ll share a sample with you here. If enough of you find this helpful, I’ll share more.
Full disclosure: The reasons that have been most compelling to me come from Hebrew and Christian Scripture and theology. I’ve mined those riches for a long time, and so I had a ready store to draw from. Also, biblical authority carries a lot of weight with me. Especially in those murky areas where worry feels like duty, the Scriptures have given me the moral clarity I crave. Even if you don’t share my faith, I hope these reasons can at least open your vision toward a bigger, more joyful life. Perhaps you’ll start your own list.
I do believe that writing has played an important part in how I’ve owned these truths for myself—so with that in mind, I’ve provided some journal prompts for those who might use them.
So—are there good reasons not to worry? I believe there are!!
Here are just a few.
Reason #1: Worry short-circuits gratitude.
Gratitude is one of the crowning graces of a joyful life. But worry is the enemy of gratitude.
It is difficult when I’m worrying even to notice blessings as they come, much less stop to consider and be thankful for them. Recently at Christmastime, I flipped through a stack of mail and suddenly wondered why I hadn’t received a card from one person in particular. Preoccupied with that thought, I made a quick pile of the cards that did come that day, barely registering the precious relationships, histories, and connections they represented.
My whole life can be like that if I’m not careful. These lines from William Cowper’s poem The Task lament our failure to appreciate what we have while we still have it:
Not to understand a treasure’s worth,
Till time has stolen away the slightest good,
Is cause of half the poverty we feel,
And makes the world the wilderness it is. (Book VI)
In this self-inflicted wilderness of mind, I continually sort what is in front of me. I toss to the side the true treasures of my life (God’s love for me, my family and friendships, my physical and spiritual needs abundantly provided, stunning beauty literally everywhere) with a kind of impatient contempt—because somehow they are not answering the burning question, the nagging fear of the moment. If I would have eyes to see the profound blessedness of my life, sometimes it is worry I must toss aside.
Journal: What might you be thankful for today if you weren’t worrying?
Reason #2: Worry makes it hard to be present for those I love.
In his typical mixed-message fashion, the preacher of Ecclesiastes urges this approach to life under the sun:
Go, eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart, for God has already approved what you do. Let your garments be always white. Let not oil be lacking on your head. Enjoy life with the wife whom you love, all the days of your vain life that he has given you under the sun, because that is your portion in life and in your toil at which you toil under the sun. (Ecc. 9:7-9)
Solomon, the probable author, starts off well here. Even in his own bitterness and backsliding, he has enough of the wisdom and common grace of God to know that living life well means fully enjoying the good gifts God has given us and rejoicing—not in some far-off pipe dream—but in the actual life we have—the measure of health given to us, the fruits of our labors, our spouses, our families. Because in Christ God Himself has “already approved” of us, we don’t have to put off rejoicing for some future time. As hard as this life can be, it is good, always, to be glad in its present blessings.
But Solomon just has to spoil the milk. He just has to throw that qualifier in there that, to his mind, taints every earthly joy:
Enjoy life with the wife whom you love, all the days of your vain life. . .
At the end of the day, Solomon’s doubt tells him, it’s all vain and meaningless. Rejoice, yeah, rejoice; wear your festal garments, put fragrant oil on your head, enjoy the wife of your youth, your portion in this life—but never let yourself forget that it’s all just a meaningless chasing after wind. Solomon’s bitter unbelief is so close beneath the surface that it pops up everywhere, even when he is getting close to the truth—maybe especially when he is getting close to the truth.
My worry is like that; it insists on qualifying every good moment. Worry wants to reach its gnarly tentacles into every sunny afternoon, every family meal, every night spent talking by the fire. With worry perpetually standing guard, there can be no truly carefree moments where love can bloom and grow. But in his moments of clarity, even Solomon knows that’s no good. “Rejoice, O young man, in your youth, and let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth,” he writes. “Remove vexation from your heart” (Ecclesiastes 11:9,10). To fully rejoice in the fleeting blessings of the life God has given me, I must “remove vexation” from my heart. I must stop worrying.
On a recent Friday night spent with my husband and 22-year-old son, I was struggling to push down some worries connected to ongoing issues in the church. And the thought came to me, perhaps from the Holy Spirit, “When do you plan to enjoy this family of yours?” It’s a good question, and a sober one. How much of my time with them, all of them, has been spent working out some unsolvable issue in my head? How many things have they told me, how many truly good things have they shared with me, that went in one ear and out the other because I was a million miles away? Am I waiting to enjoy the good life God has given me, the people God has given me, until every other problem in life has been solved? Life is short. Solomon does get that part right. My little blonde-haired boy is now a 6’4” young man, quickly moving onto his own separate pathway. How much more of our life together am I willing to waste on worrying?
Journal: Who are some of the people in your singular life that God means for you to enjoy? How might you do that more fully if you “removed vexation” from your heart?
Reason #3: Worry can’t change the past.
The truth of this is so obvious and the struggle so real that even outside the Bible, we have proverbs for it: Don’t cry over spilled milk. Water under the bridge. Hindsight is 20/20. It is a futile exercise to play through different scenarios of what could have been if only. If only I had chosen differently. If only I had known. If only I had seen. If only I had not caved to weakness. The hard fact is that the past is done (What’s done is done) and unchangeable. In His unsearchable wisdom, God allowed it to play out as it did; and he has promised that for everyone who loves Him, it will all work together for good (Romans 8:28). I may be greatly humbled and even shamed by what has happened; I can still trust that God will use it for good, that every event flows forward toward the redemption of the world and the glory of Christ with his people. Someone said, “Make the most of what comes and the least of what goes.” The glory to come so far outweighs the pain of this life, even the pain of my own failures, that the two cannot be compared. Certainly it was for this reason that Paul was able to leave his own sad and ruinous past behind, exchanging regret for hope:
But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:13-14)
Journal: Oswald Chambers said, “Let the past sleep, but let it sleep on the bosom of Christ.” What might that mean? What might it mean for you?
Reason #4: Worry distorts reality.
This is a great irony because, in my experience, I often worry in order to get at the “truth” of a thing. Yet there is no more certain way to miss the truth than to consult my worries. Worry exaggerates. It exaggerates the strength and hostility of enemies; and, truth be told, it creates enemies out of people who with some effort could be allies. Worry exaggerates dangers; it exaggerates obstacles; it exaggerates my personal flaws and/or their importance; it exaggerates failures in comparison with successes. Worry makes mountains out of molehills. We know this. Yet we still believe our worries.
Worry diminishes things, too. It diminishes advantages, strengths, supports, blessings. It diminishes a long history of being safe and well fed, the kindness of friends and even strangers, the gifts and talents we are given by God. Most importantly, worry shrinks the power and promises of God to a mere breath, to something the soul waves off and dismisses—which is the opposite of the truth I claim to believe.
Whatever I am trying to arrive at by worrying, I can be sure it is not the truth.
Journal: Are you struggling to know what is true in a particular situation? How might removing worry help you see the truth more clearly?
Reason #5: Worry chokes out good fruit.
In Jesus’ parable of the sower, the seed that fell among thorns took root, but it never produced the expected fruit. Jesus pointed out that it is in part the “cares of this world” that “choke the word” (Mark 4:19), making it unfruitful. This is a big deal, given the fact that bearing fruit is my primary purpose, the evidence that I am who I profess to be. Certainly part of fruit-bearing must be weeding out the worry that hinders it.
A garden overgrown with weeds is a crowded, chaotic place. It’s hard sometimes to tell the difference between the fruit-bearing plants and the invasive weeds because weeds grow and dominate so quickly. The soil I have worked so hard to amend and enrich is now being greedily sucked dry by “thorns and thistles,” and before I know it, the ants and grubs and slugs are marching in, and the earth I have cultivated returns to the wilderness. Conversely, when I pull up the weeds in my garden, I make space. Space for plants to grow unhindered, space for roots to breathe, reaching deeper and wider in the nutrient-rich soil, doing the marvelous work they were made to do in feeding a healthy plant, which will now produce fruit in greater abundance.
When I weed my mind of worries, I make space. Space for good thoughts, creative ideas, important connections to grow and mature. Space to grow taller, stronger, to bear the precise fruit God designed me to bear. Random, fruitless, ugly thoughts shouldn’t be allowed to crowd in and suck my life dry. If they don’t bear good fruit (and Jesus says they don’t), then they need to get pulled out and tossed aside.
Journal: What might grow more heartily in your life if you weeded out worry?
Reason #6: I can’t possibly understand the whole picture.
My understanding, perspective, assessment of any situation is limited. Only God sees it all, knows it all, knows how and why it came about and where it is all going to end up. He is privy to vast stores of information that I will never have access to—information I couldn’t possibly process even if it were available to me. He says, “I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose’” (Isa. 46:9-10).
Worrying is often about trying to grasp all of this great purpose, the why and how of everything—to explain a troubling thing in a way that makes sense to my little brain. Even if I come up with an explanation that gives me a measure of peace, I will sooner or later find holes in it, things that don’t fit or satisfy. The real explanation—the big, grand, epic explanation—is as big as the mind of God.
Journal: In what ways is your understanding limited? What are some specific things God understands, that you do not?
Reason #7: Worry often involves me in conflicts that aren’t my business.
Proverbs 26:17 says, “Whoever meddles in a quarrel not his own is like one who takes a passing dog by the ears.” Now that’s vivid and gets right to the point. The last thing you want to do is reach into a dog fight and grab someone else’s dog. It will not end well. The dog will be fine, but that foolish hand will feel the bite. It is wise to recognize whose dogs belong to who and to act accordingly. It is wise to recognize the boundaries between mine and another person’s “quarrels” and to act accordingly. My attempts to work out someone else’s conflict very easily turns into meddling, and in the end I could be the one who gets bitten, even as the dogs in the fight walk away unscathed. My mother used to say, “Never get involved in family feuds. Because they will almost always make up with each other, and then they will all remember whose side you were on.”
There’s another saying that’s getting a lot of use right now: “Not my circus, not my monkeys.” We say this because we often feel compelled to bring order to the chaos someone else is causing—and, again, it’s incredibly helpful to recognize whose dogs (or monkeys) are whose.
Journal: How much peace might you reclaim if you determined not to meddle in other people’s quarrels?
Reason #8: I can’t always do everything I want to do, and that is okay.
Growing older has a way of making us run up against our limitations. My new mantra as I enter my 60s is, “This, not that.” If I’m grooming the dog this afternoon, I cannot also go shopping for new shoes. Or write a note to my mother-in-law. Or go visit my sick friend. Because I’m mortal, and limited by space, time, strength, and resources, I have to choose. I won’t be able to do it all—at least not today. And that is okay.
The same was true when my kids were young, though I had a hard time seeing it. This, not that. If I was taking my kids to the library in the afternoon, I couldn’t at the same time bake cookies for Wednesday night fellowship. If we were decorating a doll house or putting up a tent in the backyard or doing a reading lesson, I couldn’t simultaneously pull weeds in my flower bed or wash my curtains or write a letter to my senator. So there was absolutely no point, in the midst of being with my children, to worrying about weeds or windows or Congress. The multitasking philosophy that haunted my generation was simply not true to real life. I do much better when I attempt one thing at a time and, mercifully, mentally let the other things go for later—or let them go entirely.
And that is okay. If I’m choosing to act in love to the best of my ability, I don’t need to worry about the things I can’t get to now, or maybe ever. My life isn’t a competition to see who can get the most done in the least amount of time. It is a long string of faithful choices that over a lifetime will produce lasting fruit, beauty, and blessedness.
Journal: How might recognizing life’s limitations help you enjoy more what you choose to do today?
Reason #9: Worry makes me hard to live with.
I’ve always been amused by Solomon’s complaints about wives who worry too much. For instance, according to Proverbs 21:19, “It is better to live in a desert land than with a quarrelsome and fretful woman.” Like His warning not to give loud blessings too early in the morning, it points to one of those common irritations of life that everyone can relate to. But at the same time, it speaks this truth: It is hard to be around a fretful person. Why?
For one thing, worrying too much provokes arguments. There are two adjectives in this proverb, and they go hand in hand: “quarrelsome and fretful.” I’ve seen this dynamic play out in dozens of ways in both men and women. Worried about what others might think, a woman might be overly critical of her husband and children. Worried about the family budget, a husband might fixate on every detail of his wife’s spending. Fearing abandonment or loss of control, a wife might press her husband incessantly to prove his love for her or she might inappropriately challenge her children’s moves toward independence. Brooding over the moral decline of the culture, a father might overreact when his kids express ideas contrary to his. All of these impulses lead to conflict and lots of it. And since no one likes being on the receiving end of fearful anger, family members will do all they can to avoid it, which often means avoiding the worrier.
Sometimes as a means of coping, I have off-loaded the burden of my anxiety onto others. I’ve called it venting—repeatedly going over the thing that is troubling me—but it serves no good purpose if I do it until it makes me feel better and the other person feel worse. At times I’ve also projected my fears onto those around me, laying my own fearful interpretive grid over their lives. Pessimistic about my own future, I have also been pessimistic about my children’s futures. Insecure about my own abilities, I have felt insecure about my husband’s abilities. Those who are repeatedly subjected to this distorted view of their own lives can’t be blamed for wanting to distance themselves from it.
It’s a great irony that I’ve spent so much of my life fretting over how to improve my family relationships. What if I started with letting go of fretting? What would change for all of us, immediately, if I did that one thing?
Journal: Consider that. How would it change your relationships with those closest to you if you determined to stop worrying?
Reason #10: I am sure to find what I search for hardest—either good or evil.
I’ll end with this, because I think this truth encapsulates much of the argument against worry. The principle is summed up in Proverbs 11:27: “Whoever diligently seeks good seeks favor, but evil comes to him who searches for it.”
Let those two outcomes sink in:
Whoever diligently seeks good seeks favor,
but evil comes to him who searches for it.
A lot of life depends on what I seek the most.
But what does it mean to “diligently seek good” in this evil world? In part, it means this:
Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. (Philippians 4:8)
Paul’s repetition here—whatever, whatever, whatever, whatever, whatever, whatever; any, anything—emphasizes the effort involved in seeking out good, in looking for anything whatsoever that can be commended, that can be praised—perhaps especially in other people. Paul models this approach in his letters, always pointing out with genuine gratitude and affection the best in the people he writes to—even if he has to eventually address their sin or error. This is love that “believes all things” and “hopes all things” as an act of faith—faith in Christ who transforms believers into something new, and also faith in God who has made all people in His image, so that everyone bears the distinct marks of His dignity, beauty, and glory.
And this diligent pursuit of goodness extends beyond how we think of others to how we treat them. It also looks like this:
Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic either. Give to everyone who begs from you, and from one who takes away your goods do not demand them back. And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them. (Luke 6:27-31)
This kind of radical love is an ideal that many imagine to be a lose-lose situation. But Jesus, who had to know what it was to live this way, was a man who for most of his life enjoyed that “favor” promised in Proverbs 11:27. Luke uses the word twice in writing about Jesus’ formative years:
And the child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom. And the favor of God was upon him. (Luke 1:40, emphasis mine).
And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man. (Luke 2:52, emphasis mine).
To choose goodness—to choose to bless even when others curse, to choose to give rather than to receive—is to walk under the smile of the Father, and Jesus knew this better than anyone. He said,
Give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you. (Luke 6:38)
In the end, I will find what I seek the most. If I “diligently seek good”—putting my back into it, devoting all my heart and strength and soul to it, focusing all the powers of my mind, such as they are, to that high and holy pursuit, seeking both to know and to do what is good, seeking to see and believe what is good—I can rest assured that I will find not only goodness, but the One from whom all goodness flows. “Those who devise good meet steadfast love and faithfulness” (Proverbs 14:22). The treasure I find in the midst of my labors will be a life in favor with God and man.
In contrast, worry is the treasure hunt I want to skip. It is a diligent, compulsive search for evil—“One Hundred Reasons to Despair” or “One Hundred Reasons to Despise or Fear My Neighbor”—and if I seek, I will most certainly find. Worry is a miserable search under every slimy stone for whatever is false, whatever is dishonorable, whatever is unjust, whatever is impure, whatever is ugly, whatever is reprehensible. If there is any flaw, if there is anything worthy of condemnation, worry will think about these things.
Those who reject that dark pursuit, those who instead diligently seek good, live very different, strangely favored lives. And they do so in spite of the world’s troubles, even in the midst of the world’s troubles. Rejecting worry for faith is one powerful way I resist being “overcome by evil,” as Paul said (Romans 12:21). And it frees me to “overcome evil with good.”
If you found this helpful, reach out to and tell her so! You can also find her HERE at her Substack.
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