Why we worry?

Winston Churchill said:

"When I look back on all the worries I remember the story of the old man who said on his deathbed that he had a lot of trouble in his life, most of which never happened."

How true!

Most of the things we worry about don't actually happen. Evolution has programmed us to worry. "Survival of the fittest" required man to be prepared for the worst and worry was the tool which nature gave us to survive.

When man lived in caves, the "worry instinct" told man that any noise in the bush can be a predator and therefore be ready to adopt "fight or flight response". The body supported this response by getting geared-up immediately by:
a. increasing our heart beat to increase the blood supply to our muscles for "fight or flight" action
b. increasing the supply of oxygen to hasten metabolism by faster breathing
c. eyes getting enlarged to let more light in so that any abnormal situation can be noticed immediately.
d. blood supply being diverted to our "fighting" muscles from the skin therfore the skin turned yellow.
All these actions alongwith numerous other actions by our body enabled us to emerge victor in the "survival of the fittest battle".

But these instincts are now contibuting to "excessive" worrying. In present day world we worry because:
a. somebody criticizes us (our instincts interprets this as that we are imperfect & therefore inferior)
b. we can't please everybody (we are so "egoistic" that everybody should praise us)
c. our neighbours are doing better in career than us (our "worrying instinct" has taught us that if somebody is superior to us than we are threatened)
d. our colleagues are praised in front of us (our body interprets this in a way that "we are inferior" & therefore our survival is threatened)
e. we see our batchmates doing better than us (again we feel we are inferior)
f. we read in newspaper about CEOs drawing "fortune" salaries ("how can they be better than us")
g. we see luxury magazines showing exotic luxuries like holiday resorts, 5-star hotels, Gucci bags, Chanel perfurmes (how can we be "so inferior" that we are not able to enjoy these goods but others can)

There can be hundreds of similar things whivh lead us to "worry".

Is this "worrying instinct" justified!