What? Me Worry?

Hollywood Connect E-Newsletter (10-08-09)

I’ve been spending a bit too much time in the dentist chair recently. Don’t get me wrong – I’ve got a kind and competent dentist, and together we’re working towards a million-dollar smile that would make any good leading actor’s ego swell dramatically. But lately it seems like I’ve gotten a little too familiar with staring up at the drab, acoustical ceiling tiles, my face stuffed with cotton, and the terror-inducing whine of dental instruments starting up somewhere behind me.

When you begin to recognize which tools are your friends and which ones are about to test your pain threshold, you know you’ve been sitting there way too long (and may have had one too many shots of novocaine).

A year or so ago, I went to a dentist whom I had not seen before, and as I sat there in his chair, supine, mouth agape, I listened to him calmly relay his assessment of each tooth to his assistant. “Overall condition of the gums are good,” he intoned. Pause. “Previous fillings on numbers two, fifteen, eighteen, thirty-one.” Pause. “The patient frets.”

What? I wanted to ask, but couldn’t because I had a periodontal probe and most of the dentist’s left hand in my mouth – no, seriously, if I had swallowed hard, he probably would have lost his wristwatch. The patient – meaning me, of course – frets? Well, yeah, maybe, but how did my dentist know? Isn’t that more appropriately within the field of study for a psychologist or counselor or someone like that?

It turns out that a dentist can tell when someone is the fretting type (and by that I mean a worrier, not a guitarist) by looking at your teeth. When you fret or worry, you tend to grit and grind your teeth, typically in your sleep, which over time can wear down the enamel on your teeth. And your dentist can tell. This grinding is also known as bruxism, which I know mostly because Google told me so.

It turns out that when we worry, it shows. It affects everything we do – from the quality of our art to our relationships, from our business decisions to how we sleep at night. If you haven’t already experienced this, I’m certain a good internet search will back me up on that one too.

In Psalm 37:8, we’re reminded not to fret because it will only lead to harm, and I’m pretty sure that the Psalmist was speaking of more than just damage to our teeth. With so many anxiety-inducing pressures surrounding us in the arts & entertainment world, however, his admonition may seem at times like an impossible task. Don’t fret? Are you kidding me, Mr. Psalmist? I’m in the entertainment industry, and I don’t think you understand what you’re asking for here… I have to prepare for that big audition or cover rent or find an even better manager or fire one of my production assistants or fix that relationship with my friend or pay for those ever-growing dentist bills.

Don’t fret. It’s a simple command in a complex world, a world filled with stress and tension, and you would be right in dismissing the possibility of fulfilling that command if there was no better place to put our worries. But we are assured that there is a better depository for those worries if we are humble enough to put them there:

Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in
due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. (1 Peter 5:6-7)

How odd that our first and best resort is who we turn to last and only when things are at their worst. It takes humility to admit we’re not able to deal completely with the anxieties this world hands us, but in reality, the more we try to carry these burdens on our own, the more harm we do and the more gnashing of teeth we have to endure. We simply were never created to carry these worries in the first place.

So whatever anxieties you are carrying right now – be they in your art, your business, your relationships, or any other area – toss them on God as His responsibility. But whatever you do: Don’t fret. He cares for you.

All my best,
Shun Lee
Director
Hollywood Connect

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