Worrying about other people seems to be a common theme I notice, among myself, men and women, young and old, that rules people’s thoughts and essentially their minds. Its everywhere; gossip magazines about the lifestyles of the rich and famous, the constant slandering of those who make mistakes, and the envy of those who triumph. It’s damn irritating and mentally disgusting for me to observe this, and even worse, when I catch myself doing it every day.

In book three of Meditations, Marcus Aurelius states it best.

“Don’t waste the rest of your time here worrying about other people – unless it affects the common good. It will keep you from doing anything useful.”

Marcus Aurelius continues on about how constantly worrying and thinking about how others are living their lives keeps you from actually living your own, essentially “..keep you from focusing on your own mind.”

If you want reach whatever potential, or limit, of productivity and efficiency in anything you want in your life; be it career, relationships, yourself…then ditch the habit of wasting any more mental RAM on things that are random, irrelevant, and negative.

It’s hard as hell to control your thoughts, I know that. It takes effort. Consistent effort. Here are some ways to help you stop worrying about others (this doesnt mean “not caring for others”. Simply stop worrying about others, and focus on yourself), and ultimately focus on you.

• Meditation – Do what suits you, doesn’t have to be meditation. You could pray, anything that allows you Meditative Isolation (check out Ryan Holiday’s post). Meditation is nice, because you try to think about nothing, draining everything out. You stop worrying, and instead you observe your thoughts.
• Control what you can – Remind yourself the only things you have full control over is your thoughts, and what you give (how your react, etc). You can’t control other people and what they do. Even more reason to focus on what you can control in life – You.
• Sweat it out – Go for a run, work out, play some ball with friends. I personal find that doing healthy activites that keep you fit physically will also benefit you just as much mentally.
• Write – I will always promote keeping a journal or notebook handy to express yourself in. Writing does wonders, and allows you to focus on you and really grow as an individual. Do this routinely.

It’s probably the hardest thing to do in life – controlling your thoughts. But “nothing is easy, and who wants nothing?”. Stop worrying about others (unless its for common good) and focus on yourself. Stop worrying about past or future, control what you can – the present. Dont Worry, Be Happy.

Probably my worst habit is bullshitting on the internet.  Second is worrying about small things.  For any bad habits you have, I’m sure I’m not alone when I spend, actually waste, countless hours on these habits.  I’ll go on the internet to check something out related to school, then I will get sucked into what I call “BS Surfing”.  I just randomly surf the internet and wasting time on things that arn’t relevant to anything I am trying to accomplish.

The same goes for worrying about everyday problems.  I once read one of my favorite Mark Twain quotes:  “I have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.”   I also waste too much energy and time worrying about totally irrelevant BS. 

So starting from now on, I will simply keep a small notepad labeled “BS”.  If I find any urges to research something, or worry about something, I will write it down on my BS list, and move on.  I will then dedicate a part of one day a week, for me Sunday afternoons, to go crazy on researching any BS I want to, and also contemplate about any of the small worries that bothered me during the week.

 You’ll find that you will no longer have the need to research what you wanted, and you will most likely laugh at all the small things you worried about.  Basically, to make my life more efficient, I’m going to expiriment by batching my “BS” time wasters together on my designated BS day.