Financial Worries Counted and Compelled

I was reading a fascinating post about avoiding my financial nightmare from plunged in debt, which did remind me of my own question of why are there so many things to worry about at 2 AM? Anxiety and money worries can become quite the 800 lb. Gorilla in the room if we allow them, but we really shouldn’t.

As (the late) Zero Mostel points out on the Muppet Show:

Once they are counted and compelled,
They can quickly be dispelled.
Like figments of my own imagination.

Maybe not dispelled, but certainly accounted and planned for. Fears spawn more fears and then spawn imaginative (if not even irrational) fears that may cause you to plan or attempt to remedy the wrong things. Reading the entire monologue is entertaining, but even this small excerpt can show how quickly you can jump to some seriously weird worries:

Fear of elevators falling
And the taxman someday calling
And the accidental walling of myself
Up inside a clammy, dank old dingy cellar,
Where the spiders weave around my tummy,
And the worms and bugs and crawly things
Squirm and squiggle at me person.

That’s a little over the top, but if you don’t take inventory of your financial worries, you could go into that kind of Financial Funk (as it were).

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Write things down, write what you are worried about down, and then read it. Does it seem terrifying?

If it is, then maybe get help, but maybe it is not as scary once you write it down? Write down all of your financial worries and see if they are rational and solvable, and if you can do something about it, do it! If they end up being an irrational bunch of claptrap, then shred, burn or mutilate them to show your disdain for them. If they are specific things you think you can fix (maybe with help), then do it!

Sometimes once you see your problems written down on paper, they seem less terrifying (and maybe more solvable).