Sing with me now:
In every life we have some trouble: But when you worry you make it double,
Don’t worry, beeeee happy. Don’t worry, be happy now.
The 1988 song by Bobby McFarrin became an immediate sensation after being introduced as part of the soundtrack of the movie, Cocktail. The song, made without instrumentation, was composed by layering tracks of various sounds all made by McFerrin voice. It rocketed to number one near the end of 1988. Consequently, in 1989, it was awarded three Grammys for Song of the Year, Record of the Year as well as Best Male Pop Vocal Performance.
While Don’t Worry, Be Happy is an undeniably catchy song, the philosophy in it has been lambasted for its oversimplification of human psychology and the way that we humans deal with anxiety. –Our brains are not made up of a bank of simple toggle switches where we can consciously turn off our worry switch and then just turn on another switch for happiness. Getting a handle on all of our human worries requires more work than that. It requires some purposeful thought. It requires a change in our thinking and our behaviors as well our decision making.
Jesus addresses human worry in Matthew 6:25-34. “Don’t worry about what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear.” Jesus describes how God provides food and drink for the birds and how God clothes the flowers in the fields to be dressed in splendor, far better than a king. Jesus then reminds us that we are much more valuable to God than birds or flowers. This is an example of the first step of how we humans get a handle on our worries. We need to change our perspective. There are several different ways to do this. Initially, we can to remind ourselves that we are not alone in our lives, that we are children of God and part of God’s family and that together we will be able to handle whatever happens. Additionally, we also need to ask ourselves if this thing that we are worried about is actually very likely or if it is really would be the worst thing that could ever happen to us. Are we just imagining something to be much worse than it actually is? And finally, we need to remind ourselves that this life is not the end of our existence. There is an eternal life in heaven that we are bound for. We all have a ticket for eternity that does not have our date or time of departure on it. Will this thing we are all worried about here on earth actually matter in eternity?
The second step in dealing with worry is that we need to change our behaviors. Jesus tells us to work for God’s kingdom on earth and follow God’s way of right living and many of the things that we worry about will naturally fall into place. We are to love God and all of our neighbors while loving ourselves. While this may seem simple, it is a lifetime of work to begin to accomplish this successfully. Lovingly caring for other people and ourselves is a great guide for all of our every day decisions.
The last step in successfully dealing with human worry is to compartmentalize it. Jesus advocates for this practice when he concludes in Matthew 6:34, “Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” While we still need to plan for the future and prepare for the things that we can control, there is no use in us worrying about the rest of our future troubles. With God and our community with us, with right living and loving intentions, we should be confident that we will be able to handle all tomorrow’s troubles when they will come in the future. –Because all those troubles we are worried about may not even show up tomorrow at all.
While it still is a major oversimplification; I think a better way for us to deal with all of our life’s troubles is to: Don’t Worry….Trust Jesus.
Article for Rockford Squire Newspaper, 5/9/2022