Sure, I remember being a newbie and wondering the same things, "Is it infected?" "Did I ruin my beer?" Of course the answer to both is almost always "no".
One of the first beers I ever made, I added some sugar during the ferment. I was so worried about sanitation that after boiling the sugar, I only let it cool for 5 minutes or so before adding it to my fermenter!
The temperature of the beer went up to the high 80's for about 12 hours, and needless to say, it had some off-flavors. It was WLP001, but most people who were trying to be nice said it had some "spicy" or "Belgian" flavors. I entered it in a competition for feedback, and the judges unanimously told me it had too strong of an ester / sulphur profile.
I was so worried about sanitation, but I should have been worried about the fermentation temperature. The best method was of course to boil the sugar, let it completely cool, then add it. But given a choice between the two extremes, I would have been better off just adding the sugar straight to the fermenter without ever sanitizing it.
I wish somebody had told me how important the ferment was, and how unimportant, at least in comparison, sanitation is.
But even that beer wasn't ruined. We finished all 5 gallons after all! So, I think I understand the spirit of this thread.
But don't we serve our new brewers best not by telling them RDWHAHB (Papazian's indelible hippy mark on our hobby), but by telling them what does matter, alongside telling them what doesn't really matter?
Every new brewer wants to make a good beer; that's why they worry. But given that making good beer is the goal, isn't knowing what actually matters for making a good beer the most relaxing thing of all?
Here's an example from cooking: If you watch Good Eats but you've never cooked before, you might think that making breakfast is horrendously complicated. Alton Brown gives recommendations for equipment, ingredients, temperature, seasoning, and on and on. But the only thing that really matters is watching your bacon cook, and taking it off the heat when it looks done.
If you were going to help a newbie in the kitchen relax, this is probably what you'd tell them, "Just watch your food and stop cooking it when it looks edible." That's relaxing advice. But if you told them not to worry about anything, (Relax, Don't Worry, Drink Some OJ), then when their bacon turns out a little well done (edible but not great), they have a giant list of recommendations to try, each with supposedly equal importance. To me, that's anxiety-inducing.
It's obvious not to burn your food because we've all cooked before, but it's not obvious to new brewers that the ferment is more important than wort production. I heard the standard advice to chill out when I was new, but it really just made things worse. I was making beer that was drinkable but not great, and I wanted to make it better. But there was that huge list of techniques and ingredients rolling around in my head, each equal contenders for the cause of my beer's crappiness.
If someone had told me, "Relax, Don't Worry, Do Temperature Control", then I could have actually relaxed, because I would have known one simple thing I could do differently next time.
Maybe the slogans should be this, RDWDCT and RDWMAS (Relax, Don't Worry, Make a Starter".
I think we're right to tell new brewers not to worry, but unless we tell them what to do instead of worrying, we're not doing them any favors.