Does your worry have a purpose?

Of course you passed the test... so Dearra just texted me. That Spanish final that she had to re-take? She passed it. Well duh, of course she did. It would have been incomprehensible to me if she hadn't. But still there's always that small little worry, especially since the test they gave her on Monday was not the exact same final that she took in middle school last semester. She got slightly better than 90%.

And then today in class they all took the same test so her teacher could see what everybody remembers. So she had to take the silly thing twice. How dumb is that?

Anyway, there's always the silly little irrational worry. What if she gets nervous and messes up? What if the material's different? What if the pencil was too faint? What if the school counselor eats the last pages?

OK, a lot of those are silly worries. But when your mind gets racing, strange things can pop up. Worry has a purpose, after all. If you're driving, and you see a narrow curve coming up, you worry that if you don't slow down for it, you will be in trouble. So you slow down. Or you worry that you will fail a test, so you study. Or you worry that you will fall off a cliff, so you don't get near the edge. But sometimes you worry about things that couldn't possibly happen.

Have you ever worried about something that even though you knew it was silly? Or worried about something that other people thought was silly, and then it came true?

Does your worry have a purpose?