Worry Will Make You Miserable

The following entry is an early draft from my forthcoming book I'm currently calling The Existential Paradigm.

If you want to grow as a person, stop thinking this way: “If I don’t pay close attention to money, I’ll end up poor,” or, “If I don’t punish my son, he will turn out badly.” It is better to live simply—even to go without—while keeping your inner life free from turmoil, than to live comfortably while being inwardly distressed. And it is better for your son to behave badly than for you to live in a constant state of anger. But you must begin with small things. Has a little oil been spilled? Has a little wine been taken? Say to yourself, “This is the price of peace and tranquility—and nothing comes without a cost.” And when you call your son, remember this: he may not answer. Or, if he does answer, he may not do what you want. But he is not so important that he should have the power to determine whether your life is calm or unsettled. - Epictetus, The Enchiridion, Section 12.

In the core of my being, I know I am prone to worrying. I have tendencies to anticipate the future and try to manipulate pieces of my life like a chess board. The number of things I want to worry about feels endless: if I don’t do this, then that will happen—so I have to make sure things go exactly the way I need them to, or else it’s going to be a disaster.

I worry about conversations that are days away. I worry about retirement, even though it’s decades away for me right now. When inflation is high, I worry about being forced to downsize my life. When I raised my dog, Diogenes, as a puppy, I worried constantly that he’d learn bad habits he’d carry into adulthood. Thirty-three years into my life, I have never ceased to find things to worry about. And yet, somehow, things tend to turn out generally okay. Funny how that works.

This passage from Epictetus presses on something that I have personally found tremendously helpful throughout my life: a calm and clear reminder that external things beyond my control are not worth my peace of mind.

Not my job. Not my car. Not the contents of my wallet. Not my khakis. Nothing.

In this moment, I’d like you to take a moment and think about the things in your life that you find distressing—the things that really weigh on you in your down time.

Maybe it’s the endless pressure and stress of your job. Maybe it’s money—never quite feeling secure, no matter how hard you try. Maybe it’s the pressure to keep performing, improving, or proving yourself. Maybe it’s the fear that if you slow down, everything will fall apart.

Personal, internal burdens like these are heavy and exhausting. We surrender parts of our lives—our sanity, our sleep, our well-being—in the interest of spinning plates so we don’t look or feel foolish. We fear how we will be perceived. We fear that something might go wrong and we won’t be able to handle it. We fear the inconvenience of the suffering that might befall us if things don’t go exactly as we need them to.

But ask yourself, honestly—is this worth it?

Do these thoughts fill you with dread? Do they keep you awake at night? Do they keep your grip so tight that your fingers lose circulation and your knuckles lose color?

If they do—is it worth it? Is it worth the lack of peace and tranquility? Is it worth the exhaustion that overwhelms you?

Here is the truth: worry does not give you control. It does not prevent loss, guarantee outcomes, or protect you from being hurt. At best, it is rehearsal; at worst, it is self-inflicted punishment for a future that may never arrive. And even when the thing you fear does arrive, all that worry rarely makes you stronger for it. Most of the time, it simply ensures you suffer twice.

Epictetus’ point is not that you should stop caring about things you enjoy—his point is that you should stop paying for external things with your inner life. He is asking you to decide, deliberately, what deserves access to your peace.

I am not asking—or encouraging—you to surrender your possessions or livelihood because these things may have unpleasant demands or moments. But I am asking you to consider where you are willing to draw the line between your desires and your truest well-being.

To my fellow perfectionists: if your job compensates you well and you feel the pressure to perform, will you let that pressure dominate you forever? Or can you take a step back and say, “I have worked hard today and I am tired. What I have done is enough—and if that isn’t good enough for someone else, that’s beyond my control.”

If you’re a parent, you may worry endlessly about whether you’re doing enough—reading the right books, saying the right things, modeling the right behaviors—terrified that a single misstep will permanently damage your child. But no amount of worry can guarantee an outcome. You can care deeply, act thoughtfully, and still watch your child make choices you would never choose for them. That was always going to be the case.

If you’re in a relationship, you may find yourself monitoring tone, timing, and wording, afraid that one wrong sentence might create distance or conflict. You rehearse conversations in your head, trying to ensure things go smoothly. But no amount of preparation can control another person’s feelings or interpretations. At some point, you speak honestly—or you live exhausted.

Even in the smallest moments, worry sneaks in. You check your phone one more time. You reread a message you sent hours ago. You lie awake replaying a moment that has already passed, trying to fix something that no longer exists. None of this changes anything. It only keeps your mind busy while your life waits.

This is the cost Epictetus is pointing to. Not money. Not effort. But peace.

Every time you worry about something outside your control, you agree—quietly—to pay that price.

Misfortunes are inevitable. A spilled bottle. A missing item. A child who won’t answer the phone. A plan that falls apart. These things may be inconvenient or painful—but they are not worth becoming a person who lives in constant agitation.

So start where Epictetus tells you to start: with the small things. When something minor goes wrong—something breaks, something is misplaced, someone is careless—notice the urge to tighten your grip. In that moment, practice saying, “This is the price of peace.” Not because the inconvenience is good, but because your composure is better.

I recall a recent time when I was completely overwhelmed by my life. Although I was physically fine, I didn’t have the strength in my body to stand. I had no will to do, achieve, or be anything. I lay on my couch for hours, crushed by stress and burden, wondering—truly—how I had let my life get so out of hand. How I had become so preoccupied with the opinions and concerns of others that I felt subject to a life of misery.

I won’t lie—Epictetus was going through my head constantly during this episode. I kept cycling through the list of things within my control: aversions, desires, opinions, and goals. I couldn’t understand how I had drifted so far from that simple teaching, to the point where I felt dominated by people and circumstances that weren’t me.

One night during this episode, as I tried to fall asleep, my wife asked, “Can you just try to be present in the moment right now?” Truthfully, I didn’t feel like I could. The anxiety felt overwhelming—trapping, paralyzing. I was “stuck” and I did not have the power or will to rise from the psychic beating I was taking.

A day or so after that event and a lot of internal interrogation, I eventually realized what had happened: I had once again fallen into the trap of perfectionism. I was consumed by the need for approval and driven by the belief that I could not fail—not as a husband, friend, colleague, or person. That belief pushed me into burnout and depression. I lost the plot of my own life because I was too busy wondering what my critics might think of it.

In the end, I realized living like this wasn’t worth the cost. Delivering “perfection” every time, never missing a deadline, and never failing to show up were beliefs that devastated my inner world. The price of my peace and tranquility is accepting that I will disappoint people sometimes. I will make mistakes. I will fail to deliver. I will miss important events. I will upset people.

And what then? What if I fail to meet expectations and lose my job? What if I can’t find another? What if I’m forced to downsize my life? What if friends leave? What if I’m left on my own?

The truth is this: I will survive. And if you relate with what I’m saying, you will too.

I would rather have little and be happy with my life, than have much and be miserable. So I have to set boundaries for myself. I have to realize that I can’t worry about every little thing—it is not worth my peace of mind.

This wasn’t easy at first. I had to start small—thoughts like: I cannot control how he interprets this message. I cannot control how he responds. I cannot control whether someone dislikes me. The more I practiced this, the better I became at it. I’m still practicing—but the more I keep this distinction in mind, the freer and calmer I feel myself becoming.

When I look back on the seasons of my life when I was most miserable, worry was almost always at the center—not because something terrible had already happened, but because I lived as though it was about to. I paid the price of catastrophe in advance.

Epictetus’ warning is simple: you don’t get a refund for that kind of suffering. Most of what we fear never arrives (our thoughts are not the reality they claim to be!). And when something finally does, we meet it with the same limited tools we always had—our judgment, our choices, and our character. All that worry in between does not prepare us. It only wears us down.

That, I think, is what Epictetus is offering us here.