This cannot reasonably be how mentally healthy people react though, because this would seem to suggest that the healthy thing to do is to never worry about anything at all, in which case, what utility would have led to that emotion evolving in the first place?
You worry about uncertainty. There is no uncertainty in this flow chart. Worrying about things that are defined and known is not healthy, but that’s not to say that stable people never worry about things they know the solution to or never worry even though there aren’t any real problems. The distinction really is if you’re able to make yourself stop worry or not, in a healthy way, or if worry consumes you to the point of anxiety.
Yup, I rarely worry because I’m prepared for a lot of the most likely issues that could come up. We have:
a healthy emergency fund, so we can weather unemployment
food in storage, so we can handle a natural disaster for a least a couple weeks
two cars and flexible work, so we can handle a car going kaput
space heaters, so we can handle the furnace going out in the winter
And so on. The more prepared I am, the less I worry. However, it’s impossible to prepare for everything, so I do worry, but I’m able to make that very infrequent with planning.
This cannot reasonably be how mentally healthy people react though, because this would seem to suggest that the healthy thing to do is to never worry about anything at all, in which case, what utility would have led to that emotion evolving in the first place?
You worry about uncertainty. There is no uncertainty in this flow chart. Worrying about things that are defined and known is not healthy, but that’s not to say that stable people never worry about things they know the solution to or never worry even though there aren’t any real problems. The distinction really is if you’re able to make yourself stop worry or not, in a healthy way, or if worry consumes you to the point of anxiety.
Yup, I rarely worry because I’m prepared for a lot of the most likely issues that could come up. We have:
And so on. The more prepared I am, the less I worry. However, it’s impossible to prepare for everything, so I do worry, but I’m able to make that very infrequent with planning.