The Ten-Point Plan to Overcome Hyperactivity

By Fr. Jerry Pokorsky ( bio - articles - email ) | Jul 21, 2025

An amusing Jewish-mother joke worthy of a Seinfeld episode goes like this: A mother telegraphs her daughter with an urgent message. “Bad news coming tomorrow, begin worrying today.”

The account of Mary and Martha in the Gospel is lovely. The gentle repetition of Martha’s name is a charming example of a loving rebuke of Martha’s hyperactivity. "Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things. There is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, and it will not be taken from her." (Lk. 10:40-42) Martha’s hyperactivity has become the hallmark of modern life, and we could use some guidance.

Electronic gimmicks facilitate hyperactivity. Most of us are married to our smartphones. We can’t leave home without them. We are annoyed when others don’t answer our texts. We are on call 24/7. We are slaves of hyperactivity.

We’ve become hyperactive with our health. Need evidence? Turn on the TV news, and when the first pharmaceutical commercial comes on, immediately pull the plug. You’ll thank me. Except, you’ll probably return to your smartphone (as I do) for the news.

Good nutritional practices are praiseworthy, and taking those daily pills to prevent medical catastrophes is often necessary. However, reasonable health maintenance easily transitions into hyperactivity. If Google ads are any indication, AI wants me to worry about my flabby girth and even toe fungus, if applicable.

Our health practices have become as volatile as investments in the stock market. I should have invested in gold years ago. I should have avoided processed foods when I was healthy and eaten beets to prevent high blood pressure. Who knew? I suppose nowadays they would say Big Macs and French fries are bad for you.

Word is, The Twilight Zone is making a comeback. Many of us remember watching the series for the first time in the 1960s. Some of the episodes were silly, as when the young William Shatner failed to convince the flight attendants that the abominable snowman was on the wing of the airplane. Other episodes were morality plays, such as when neighbors in panic break down the door of a family’s bomb shelter during a false nuclear alert.

Here is a modern suggestion for a Twilight Zone episode: “Moloch.” Surviving classmates celebrate a 60th reunion of their high school graduation. The 78-year-old codgers discuss the latest in technology. One of them points to his newfangled smartphone. Another tells them about his latest discovery, Artificial Intelligence, and proposes a little game to pass the time.

He logs into ChatGPT. They enter their health details, the results of recent physical exams, infirmities, medications, and so on. They ask AI when and how they will die. ChatGPT crunches the probabilities, and each classmate receives an answer. One will die next month, another within a year, and so on. They share a good laugh and return home.

The following month, the first classmate on the list suffers a heart attack and dies, as predicted. The second succumbs to another infirmity, right on schedule. The remaining classmates become alarmed and fixate on their health to outwit AI. They fail, and they drive their families crazy with their hyperactive health obsessions. Rod Serling summarizes the episode: The demon Moloch doesn’t need bloodlust worship when he can distract us from loving God and neighbor with ChatGPT—on the Twilight Zone.

Mary has chosen the better part. She performs her daily tasks after the example of the all-good God who created the world in six days. Like the good Lord, she rested on the seventh day, recharging her batteries, keeping the Sabbath holy, and relaxing with her family. Her work commitments didn’t define her. She knows her dignity from her encounter with Jesus.

We are God’s handiwork. We discover our dignity by surrendering ourselves to His loving providence in our encounter with Jesus in the Sacraments. Our cooperation is reasonable. We pay attention to our investments and health, but we’re not obsessed. We recognize the pitfalls associated with hyperactivity that offend God and family. “For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul?” (Lk. 9:25)

Solution? Turn to the Lord with the serene confidence of Mary, the sister of Martha, and resolve to live by this ten-point plan (cf. Mk. 6:25-34):

1. Do not be anxious about your life, what you shall eat or what you shall drink, nor about your body, what you shall put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?
2. Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?
3. Which of you by being anxious can add one cubit to his span of life?
4. Why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
5. If God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O men of little faith?
6. Do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek all these things; and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.
7. Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well.
8. In response to worried mothers everywhere: Do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself.
9. Let the day’s own trouble be sufficient for the day.
10. Every morning as we look into the mirror, ask: ‘With God’s grace, how can I make the world a better place?’ A generous spirit in union with the Sacraments overcomes hyperactivity.