By Barbara Jorgen Nance

We all know that worrying is fruitless, yet we all worry anyway. Why is that? I woke up this morning weirded out that a bump on my forehead was a worry wart. Is there really such a thing? Why does our brain even give us such weird ideas like that to worry about? My pondering mind wants answers. So the first thing I did was look it up and yes, it's defined as GÇ£A person who worries or frets incessantly.GÇ¥ Or it could actually be a wart that one might worry about. But wait, there's more!

GÇ£WorryGÇ¥ itself is an interesting word, which has traveled far from its original origins. It first appeared in Old English (as "wrygan") where it meant, NOT GÇ£to fret,GÇ¥ but GÇ£to strangle!GÇ¥ The grisly meaning of GÇ£worryGÇ¥ softened a bit in subsequent centuries, until arriving at its modern meaning GÇ£to make or be persistently anxious,GÇ¥ around 1822. Wart means a defect or unattractive feature,GÇ¥ (as in the phrase GÇ£warts and allGÇ¥). Perhaps it could be an annoying, obnoxious or insignificant person.

GÇ£Worry WartGÇ¥ became a household standard when it was used as the name of a recurrent character in the popular newspaper Comic Strip, GÇ£Out Our Way.GÇ¥ It was created and drawn by James R. Williams from 1922 to 1957. Oddly enough, GÇ£Worry WartGÇ¥ was a boy who caused worry in other people rather than himself. J.R. Williams was known in his day as the Mark Twain of comics.

A few quotes worth pondering: 1. GÇ£Worry does not empty tomorrow of sorrow, it empties today of strength," Corrie Ten Boom. Corrie(Cornelia Ten Boom certainly knew a lot about strength and sorrow as she and other family members helped many Jews escape the Nazi Holocaust during WWll. She was imprisoned for her actions.
2. GÇ£Worrying is like praying for something you don't want.GÇ¥ Author unknown.
3. GÇ£Worrying is like a rocking chair: gives you something to do, but gets you nowhere.GÇ¥
Just waking up thinking about worry warts has me worried. Maybe I need to do my own worry wart comic strip, just to further investigate the subject myself.
Ponder On