Bad and Getting Worse

Worse: In a less favorable condition; in a more unsatisfactory situation.

As if my tendency to visualize pain and death and destruction isn't aberrant enough, I mix in an uncanny ability to see how I have fallen short in whatever it is that I am doing. I don't even have to actually fall short, either, to feel terrible about my efforts. Most of the time I feel inadequate right out of the chute. If I don't -- rare as this may be -- I just need to think for a minute. Thinking about myself is one of my favorite past times. I'm good at it. With a minimum of effort I can ferret out some morsel of inadequacy about which I can feel terrible. Sometimes even this doesn't produce the desired result. So I make something up. I feel bad about an illusion.

I am the proud owner of a state of the art, fully digital Worry Scanner. This device can be preloaded with many, many Topics of Worry. When I'm feeling good and peaceful and content, I can simply switch on my scanner which will cycle through all of the areas of potential worry in my life until it finds something that is upsetting. There is a section dedicated to Universal Worries -- sickness, death, politics, money, and the like -- and there is a section for Worries Du Jour --the daily problems that flit in and out of our lives like bats.

Today I will trade in that Scanner for a nice piece of whitefish.