Worry+Stoicism+ChatGPT=The Worry Scale

I am a worrier. It is in my DNA. I have recently done a deep dive into Stoicism via the collected works of Ryan Holiday. One of the many things I have learned from this reading is that when we worry, we are living in the future, thinking about things that may never happen. A Stoic would encourage the worrier to live in the moment, where we have a much greater chance of being in control of the thoughts that want to lure us away. Recently, I was talking to a friend about a few things I was worried about. She asked, "is there a scale before worry?" Meaning, on a scale of 1-10, where 1 is the lowest level of worry and 10 is the highest, where would I place the term worry? Readers of this blog know that I am a big fan of Yearly Themes. As I thought about my friend's question I realized that pondering "it" would provide me a great opportunity to think more about my Yearly Theme: The Year of Re-claiming. By doing so I just might come up with a better way to process my worrisome thoughts.

In order to re-claim the term, and more importantly, my thoughts on worry, I decided to make good use of my subscription to ChatGPT. I asked ChatGPT to provide me with a list of terms that were a milder version of the term worry. Here is what it gave me...

Concern, unease, apprehension, nervousness, tension, fret, and ponder.

I then asked ChatGPT to provide me a list of terms that were more intense versions of the term worry. It listed...

Anxiety, distress, agitation, fear, anguish, dread, panic, obsess, overthinking, and trouble.

Next, I asked ChatGPT to rank all of the terms in order of their intensity. This is what I got...

Ponder, fret, unease, restlessness, concern, nervousness, apprehension, tension, overthinking, obsess, trouble, agitation, anxiety, fear, dread, distress, panic, and anguish.

This ranking came with the qualifier that, "This ranking reflects general connotations and may vary based on context or personal interpretation." After looking at the list, which also included notes on why each term was placed in the order I received along with a definition of each term, I had to admit, based on my experiences, ChatGPT and I were very much in agreement.

I decided to put these terms in a table, creating a 1-10 scale of worry where 1=lowest level of worry and 10=greatest level of worry. Note that some of the terms are paired up based on my own associations with each term.

Here is how that came out...

Finally, I created a protocol for future encounters with worry. Moving forward, when I feel that something is triggering "worry" I will...

1. Pause

2. Take 2 deep breathes

3. Ask myself, "What am I really feeling?"

4. Name 'it' on the Worry Scale.

5. Ask myself, "Where am I feeling 'it'?"

6. Ask myself, "Why am I feeling 'it'?"

7. Decide on a course of action.

One big takeaway from all of this thinking is that most of what I would call worry falls below the number 5 on my Worry Scale. I think the Stoics would be impressed.