My dear young friend,
It astonishes me that you trouble yourself to visit this physician of the
mind. From his advice, he well deserves the title we accord our physicians:
leech. It seems he has extracted a great deal of money from you. His prize
achievement thus far is this: he has made you feel guilty about feeling guilty.
It is absurd.
All this because you “worry too much.” There is certainly a good reason
why you have received no help from your Lord and Savior in this. You worry about
anything and everything that could possibly occur. Can you not see that, while
any one of your worries could become reality, by no chance could all of them do
so? So most of what you worry over will never be.
Consider well: what are the things you worry about? First you worry about
that which you have. You worry about your possessions, you worry about your
family. But did not our Lord command you to commit such troubles to him? With
good reason; he holds the future. If you will place him first, does he not have
the power to secure all that needs be secured? And dispose of all that needs be
disposed?
It may be also that you worry about that which you do not have. This divides
in two: those things you want, and those you fear. But is not the Father of
Lights the source of every good and perfect gift? Does he not know you need
these things? As for those things you fear, who better than the omnipotent would
you have deal with them?
The matter is one of faith. Look back at your worries; how many of them have
become reality? Of those, how many were beyond the strength of God? You see the
foolishness of it all, if only looking to the past. When you become old enough
to value each day as one more precious gift, you will see that each day has
enough worry in it. Borrow nothing from the morrow. Better to be in the hands of
the moneylenders than the grip of worry.
An older, wiser man once gave me good advice on this. “Trust your troubles
to the Lord – he will be awake all night anyway.” As long as he is up and
about, you can sleep soundly.
I calmly remain,
Isaac the alchemist
