If I am about to go and fence a bout, the color of the shirt that I wear under my jacket is of no concern to me—but if I had spent significant time before the bout debating over what shirt to wear instead of training, it would become a damaging detail rather than a meaningless one.
Unfortunately, worrying about whether you should worry is also harmful for the same reasons. Luckily, that question should resolve itself more quickly, so it should be a net benefit.
However, in more difficult cases, worrying about whether your should worry is harder to resolve and takes more time than the worrying; when this is generalized to “how much should I worry”, it can balloon to an absurd degree, and become far more harmful than the potential worst case of the worry. And correctly calibrating the appropriate amount of worry in advance requires knowing how bad the possible consequences are, which requires resolving the worry.....
In short: It is very possible to overshoot and become too pessimistic, and “how much should I worry” is a common manifestation of it. Or even shorter: Anxiety disorders are a bitch.
My intuitive sense is that for most people, considering whether it is worth worrying about something which will come up regularly (especially with unknown frequency) bounds [amount of time wasted] from above with a constant, which should be beneficial in general. It sounds like an anxiety disorder could bloat this constant to the point of uselessness, in which case obviously the calculus would be different.
The trouble is when you spend a lot of time thinking, “How much should I worry about this specific thing?” I don’t know anyone who spends a significant time on “How much should I worry in general?”
Oh, sorry, I was trying to refer to “How much should I worry about this specific thing?” throughout; “How much should I worry in general” seems like kind of an ill-formed question, since worrying seems to take a lot of forms both productive and unproductive, and the optimal amount is probably highly dependent on circumstances.
Unfortunately, worrying about whether you should worry is also harmful for the same reasons. Luckily, that question should resolve itself more quickly, so it should be a net benefit.
However, in more difficult cases, worrying about whether your should worry is harder to resolve and takes more time than the worrying; when this is generalized to “how much should I worry”, it can balloon to an absurd degree, and become far more harmful than the potential worst case of the worry. And correctly calibrating the appropriate amount of worry in advance requires knowing how bad the possible consequences are, which requires resolving the worry.....
In short: It is very possible to overshoot and become too pessimistic, and “how much should I worry” is a common manifestation of it. Or even shorter: Anxiety disorders are a bitch.
My intuitive sense is that for most people, considering whether it is worth worrying about something which will come up regularly (especially with unknown frequency) bounds [amount of time wasted] from above with a constant, which should be beneficial in general. It sounds like an anxiety disorder could bloat this constant to the point of uselessness, in which case obviously the calculus would be different.
The trouble is when you spend a lot of time thinking, “How much should I worry about this specific thing?” I don’t know anyone who spends a significant time on “How much should I worry in general?”
Oh, sorry, I was trying to refer to “How much should I worry about this specific thing?” throughout; “How much should I worry in general” seems like kind of an ill-formed question, since worrying seems to take a lot of forms both productive and unproductive, and the optimal amount is probably highly dependent on circumstances.