Ahanu
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Today our time is sometimes labeled the "age of anxiety." Being born in 1986 helped me see how anxiety affected me over the years. Many Americans suffer from anxiety. More Americans experience anxiety than any other countries on the planet. Even third world countries, with their lack of technology, have a very low anxiety rate compared to North America. Think of how Americans constantly worry about time. People of third world countries in African villages probably don't sweat it. Also, the events of reason as the sole guide for humankind in our recent centuries have also helped in lifting anxiety up to a higher pedestal. Depending on how you handle anxiety, it can shape you or break you over the years.
What is anxiety? Wakeful anguish afflicts many of our family and friends, yet it shows no exterior signs for their loved ones to see. In this case, anxiety is like screaming in outer space, a place where nobody can here you scream like a little girl. Also, it is as if we’re hurled out of the Goldilocks zone, where everything is just right, to a space we find that our “soul is alarmed.” For those of us who experience anxiety on a weekly basis, we know it is an invisible burden that bypasses others unseen, eventually weighing us down, and then finally leaving us holding on to a strong intolerance for uncertainty.
Often, these anxious thoughts involve my future career in English education, my lack of an intimate relationship with the opposite sex, my families’ personal problems, my church, and so on. Anxiety compels obsessive contemplation. I am haunted by what ifs. What am I failing to be? Is love real? What about trust? Will I repeat the same mistakes in my past? By the way, just substitute any problem you may worry about. For instance, worrying about the energy crisis, religious fundamentalism, or our planet being engulfed in World War 3 are a few examples. People on a couple of online forums are probably preparing at this very moment for total annihilation of the majority of the human population! So, just what is the way forward here?
While listening to my lonely thoughts, it is important to note that I move through it. Because anxiety keeps us in arrested development, it paralyzes us to such an extent that it wears us out. Worry, as if it is the rust on a blade, can potentially render us useless in our daily activities. This is an excellent moment for me to sit back and reflect on my automatic thoughts, however, this time I plan to change them with an awareness of something fresh and new. So I see how I have developed over the years by adjusting these automatic thought processes in my mind by remaining confident in my ability to grow. As Rumi would say, “Don’t look for the remedy for your troubles outside yourself. / You are the medicine. / You are the cure for your own sorrow.”
I wanted to personally share some of my findings on anxiety and how it dramatically has an effect on society today. This “age of anxiety” has changed us all at some extent. Well, hope this helped somebody too. Thank you for taking the time to read this.
What is anxiety? Wakeful anguish afflicts many of our family and friends, yet it shows no exterior signs for their loved ones to see. In this case, anxiety is like screaming in outer space, a place where nobody can here you scream like a little girl. Also, it is as if we’re hurled out of the Goldilocks zone, where everything is just right, to a space we find that our “soul is alarmed.” For those of us who experience anxiety on a weekly basis, we know it is an invisible burden that bypasses others unseen, eventually weighing us down, and then finally leaving us holding on to a strong intolerance for uncertainty.
Often, these anxious thoughts involve my future career in English education, my lack of an intimate relationship with the opposite sex, my families’ personal problems, my church, and so on. Anxiety compels obsessive contemplation. I am haunted by what ifs. What am I failing to be? Is love real? What about trust? Will I repeat the same mistakes in my past? By the way, just substitute any problem you may worry about. For instance, worrying about the energy crisis, religious fundamentalism, or our planet being engulfed in World War 3 are a few examples. People on a couple of online forums are probably preparing at this very moment for total annihilation of the majority of the human population! So, just what is the way forward here?
While listening to my lonely thoughts, it is important to note that I move through it. Because anxiety keeps us in arrested development, it paralyzes us to such an extent that it wears us out. Worry, as if it is the rust on a blade, can potentially render us useless in our daily activities. This is an excellent moment for me to sit back and reflect on my automatic thoughts, however, this time I plan to change them with an awareness of something fresh and new. So I see how I have developed over the years by adjusting these automatic thought processes in my mind by remaining confident in my ability to grow. As Rumi would say, “Don’t look for the remedy for your troubles outside yourself. / You are the medicine. / You are the cure for your own sorrow.”
I wanted to personally share some of my findings on anxiety and how it dramatically has an effect on society today. This “age of anxiety” has changed us all at some extent. Well, hope this helped somebody too. Thank you for taking the time to read this.
And for me it pays off I smile, time goes by at a nice speed and I feel weightless... Holding onto things such as stress and anxiety ain't good.