Don’t Worry, the ‘King of Worriers’ Has Many Disciples

My confession that I am a chronic worrier has not met with universal disdain.

Some readers agree with me that worrying gets things done, and that every marriage needs one worrier.

“I understand perfectly your description of how you worry,” writes Dorothy Crowley-Cavecche of Palos Verdes Estates. “I do exactly the same thing. I think we are the stabilizers of the world. Our spouses are lucky indeed that we are there for them so they can be ‘free spirits’ and can leave the worrying to us.”

She points out that the Queen Elizabeth 2 would have nothing but rough passages across the Atlantic if it were not for her stabilizers. “So why don’t we celebrate the fact that because of people like us the world can stay in balance.”

John J. Morgenstern, a psychologist, of Pacific Palisades, describes me as “one of the great journalists of our time and perhaps one of the wisest of our century.”

Most readers surely know that I do not usually publish such words of praise, since I feel it is unseemly to use this space for that purpose. However, Dr. Morgenstern’s encomium is so inflated that we must consider it shameless hyperbole.

Having said that, I see no reason for not quoting Dr. Morgenstern as adding that “With the possible exception of Mark Twain, I have never come across a writer so intelligent, so educated, so sensitive, so brilliant, wise and insightful that he agrees with me on just about everything!”

Dr. Morgenstern then gets to the point: “Still, all of these Alpine brilliances of yours were finally themselves exceeded by your column . . . in which you defined yourself as virtually the arch-worrier of our time.

“In my rare moments of self-satisfaction, I used to claim that title for myself, believing that others in my family and among my friends simply lacked the brains or the experience or the simple common sense to worry (appropriately) about what countless things can go wrong.

“Your column clearly entitles you to the title ‘The Worrier King,’ and I am only too happy to bend my knee and defer to your superior worrying ability. . . .”

I worry that Dr. Morgenstern is only pulling my leg; but who knows--he could be serious.

Al Stevens, publisher of Major League Baseball News, writes that he seeks to “improve my image” by arguing that what I call “worry” is actually “concern,” a nobler feeling than “worry.”

He quotes Webster’s definition of concern : “state of uncertainty and apprehension . . . marked interest or regard arising through a personal tie or relationship. . . .”

True, my worrying does arise from a concern for my wife’s well-being, since most of my worries are about her.

On the other hand, he says, Webster’s defines worry as “to subject to persistent or nagging attention or effort; to afflict with mental distress or agitation; make anxious to move, proceed or progress by unceasing or difficult effort. . . .”

Sorry, but that is not the kind of worrying I do. Stevens has defined the transitive verb worry , which must have an object, or victim. That is the kind of worrying that a cat does to a mouse.

The kind of worrying I do is defined by Webster’s as “to feel distressed in the mind; be anxious, troubled, or uneasy.” That kind of worrier has no victim except himself (and maybe his wife).

Phyllis Fritsch, who signs herself “mother of 6-plus,” agrees with my theory that every marriage will be better if one spouse is a worrier. “That is, with any couple, things will usually be OK if one of the two will shoulder the responsibility of doing the worrying for both. My husband and I take turns and it works well for us.”

I don’t know whether you can take turns. It seems to me that a worrier has one kind of mind and a non-worrier has another. Mrs. Fritsch protests against what I consider a perfect example of that theory.

I wrote that my wife was driving me to a speaking engagement in Loma Linda, and I kept worrying that we weren’t going to make it in time. I kept telling her “We aren’t going to make it”; but after we passed Pomona and the freeway cleared up, she went 75 m.p.h. the rest of the way and we were on the dot.

“Your words represent the totally ‘benign’ contempt for the speed limit that keeps it from working and also KILLS,” Mrs. Fritsch says. “Figuring it generously, you only saved about eight minutes. Was it really worth it? Don’t you realize that there are a lot of very impressionable people out here who think, ‘If a nice guy like Jack Smith does it, it’s gotta be OK?”

Wait a minute! It was my wife who was driving 75, not me.

And I worried about it every mile of the way.