On The Wisdom of Insecurity: A Message for an Age of Anxiety by Allan Watts
by Shane Timson
For High Plains Public Radio Readers Book Club, I'm Shane Timson in Colby, Kansas.
Today we're talking about the book The Wisdom of Insecurity by Alan Watts. This book was written back in 1951, but it might as well have been written today because the things he talks about, well, it's exactly what we're dealing with here. Now, I think this is a great book. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I want everyone to go out and get a copy of this book and read it.
However, I will admit it is a very deep book at times, and there's times I honestly have no idea what he's talking about, much less how I would apply some of these things to my life. But that being said, there's a lot of great wisdom in this book. And I'll share one thing here that I've learned from the book.
Security. Security is something that we all want. We want job security. We want marriage security. We want, you know, you name it. We want security. And Dr. Watts said that's impossible. It is impossible to get security because you may be secure one day, but one thing we all know life changes. Everything changes from day to day so you're secure today, but you may not be secure tomorrow. That breeds to worry.
Dr. Watts asks what if we could be more like the animals? For example, the bear doesn't worry about how he's going to get food tomorrow. If he's hungry, he goes out; he hunts; he kills; he eats; he goes to sleep. He doesn't worry about what he needs until he needs it, and if we could learn how to be more concerned about what I need to eat immediately, I'll eat. I won't worry about eating until I need to eat again. When I need to pay the bill, I'll pay the bill. I'm not going to stress and worry about how I am going to pay the bill.
Animals live in the here and now. Humans try to live so far out into the future. The animal kingdom doesn't worry about security. It just does its thing to survive.
The reality is, friends, we're all going to die. We are all going to face the physical death, whether you have a religious belief or no religious belief, doesn't matter who you are, how much money you have or don't have, we are all going to die. You may die with fried chicken in your hand. You may die with a carrot in your hand. It doesn't matter. Death is going to happen to all of us.
And yet, this life we have is so short and so precious. But if we're honest, we spend most of the time worrying about things that we have no control over. If you lose your job, yes, that would be sad, but you have no control over that so enjoy your job today. Enjoy all of the things that you have today and don't be afraid of change rather embrace the change because it's going to happen. It's going to happen whether you want it or not, so you might as well embrace the change.
This is an eye-opening book because I have suffered from depression. And at times it has been crippling depression, and as I read this book and then I think back up my time of being in depression, it was all worry for nothing. And if I had just lived in the moment and dealt with whatever was in the moment, guess what? I probably wouldn't have been depressed and guess what if we all could learn to live this way.
I guarantee you, drug use would go down. Alcohol use would go down. We would all have healthier lives because we would eliminate a lot of stress -- stress that we don't even need to have because there's nothing we can do about so much. So, my friend, go out today live your life. Don't worry about what could happen tomorrow or next week. Just live in the moment and be very grateful for what you have.
