Spending Life as a Worrywart

My husband just unknowingly triggered a rant. He's watching this program about earthquakes & apparently NYC is the 4th most at risk city in the US for an earthquake.

Basically, I don't think you can live your life worrying about things you can't control. This includes terrorist attacks, weather conditions & unfortunate things that might happen b/c you took the subway, went to a club, went jogging in the park or did anything basically known as living your life. If a terrorist wants to attack something bad enough, it's going to happen. However, it doesn't mean you become a shut-in & let the government take all your rights away.

Let the government & the police worry about terrorism. You're more likely to get molested by a friend or relative or get in a car accident than be in a terrorist attack. Crime happens everywhere. Even little towns where no one thought crime would happen get their share of gruesome events. That doesn't mean don't be aware or do stupid crap like hang around bad neighborhoods but it does mean not to act like Wade Duck.

For those who haven't seen the Garfield cartoon of the '90s, it featured a series called U.S. Acres (Orson's Farm if you live outside the US or watch the Region 1 DVDs). Whatever title you want to call it, the main characters were a bunch of barnyard animals living on a farm. One of them was a duck named Wade who was terrified of everything. Wade always ran screaming from scary situations; he even had a theme song that started "Wade, you're afraid of every little thing..."

The doomsday clique annoys me to no end. If you think you're going to die soon, why bother doing anything? Why go to work? Why obey the law?

Under that rationale, we should all be murdering each other, raping children & strung out on drugs. After all, we'll all be dead soon, won't we? Why shouldn't the pedophiles & everyone else run wild?

I said this years ago & I still believe it now: I'd rather live a short, happy life than a long, miserable one. Seeing what living in misery does to someone has made me rage even harder against living that way myself.