Would it help?

This week,  I watched an interesting movie, “Bridge of Spies”, a 2015 film by Steven Spielberg. 

It is based on a true story of an American lawyer, James B Donovan, who is tasked with defending a suspected KGB spy, Rudolf Abel, during the height of the Cold War. The lawyer’s job is simple. To put up a show to the world that the American justice system works. No need to go into the details and try to help the man. His fate had been sealed. He is to hang by the rope.  But the lawyer goes overboard and provides the best possible defence for his “client”, casting himself as an enemy of the American people.

The lawyer’s heroics apart, what impressed me more was the suspected spy. His calmness and composure at a time when he was facing the deepest trouble that any person can ever encounter was telling. 

Abel (played by Mark Rylance) faced possible hanging by the rope if found guilty. In addition, the then USSR government denied him as a spy, and at one point, the deal his lawyer had brokered to have him get back “home” safely was on the brink of collapse. Yet every time James (played by Tom Hanks) asked him if he was worried, his answer was,

“Would it help?”. 

The kind of statement that gets me thinking every time I watch this movie.

Whenever we face adversity and trouble of all kinds in our lives, the default state is always to worry. Staying up all night, crushing out and creating scenarios of the worst happening. Suffering mentally before we even suffer in real life. And yet the act of worrying itself never makes the situation any better. It just prolongs the suffering. Worrying is such an unnecessary emotion. Working on this kind of emotion can save us from a lot of stress, anxiety and trouble. We can literally just do anything, and if it goes fine, cool. If it doesn’t, just double up on the effort or change direction.

In Abel’s situation, there is not much that he could do. He had been arrested and was in the custody of the American authorities, awaiting trial. He had done his role, to gather secrets on behalf of his government and not reveal them to anyone else. He had done his role. The consequences were not in his control.

Now paint a picture of yourself in a similar situation. Awaiting your exam results, an interview or even payments or that text from your lover. Picture any scenario where you have done your part, and the rest is upon someone else. No amount of worry can create a different outcome from what is going to happen. 

There are numerous other things that you can embark on to make things better in the future. That’s what you need to do. In Abel’s case, he was an artist, a painter. All he did in his time in detention was to paint and listen to classical Soviet music. That is all he had to do. I know that those actions could not help to make his situation better in the future, but they made his present less painful.

Fortunately, to his own surprise, he was able to secure his very unlikely “freedom”.

At this point, I want to refrain from spoiling the movie further and just say that the next time you have something stressing and you spend time with your palm on your cheek, you should first ask yourself the question, “Would it help?” And if the answer is no, then focus on what would help and leave the rest to the powers that be.