This May Be Why We Are Anxious
Hopefully, this makes sense
Why is it that some people live ‘safe lives’ filled with anxiety and others live lives full of risk and recklessness and yet nothing seems to trouble them?
I worked with a man named Joe; it was a well-known fact around the office in this large multinational corporation that Joe hated surprises, people who had worked with Joe, would play jokes on him.
Joe was a very anxious person, the greatest stress for Joe would be to enter his office and say. ‘Hey Joe your boss says you need to get on the next plane to XXX and attend this meeting. Present our plans for the next year.’
Now Joe was very professional and would have had his plans done and ready for any presentation, but the leaving at a moments notice and not being able to rehearse his presentation and contemplate every possible question that could arise, would cause Joe to enter a tail spin of anxiety.
Joe liked to be in control, his life had to play out according to the plans that he had projected in his mind. His internal programme had to be followed, and if he encountered any curve balls he needed a contingency that he would have already planned too.
Personally I go through stages of anxiety, I think we all do, it’s when it becomes chronic that it gets serious.
I have an extended family member who has lived his entire life ‘dicing with death,’ for want of a better expression.
He has lived and worked in many war zones. Afghanistan, Sudan, Angola in the 1980s. Various Middle Eastern countries. He actually looks to work in the conflict zones because as he once told me, when I asked him why he enjoys this kind of life, he said ‘I feel most alive when I am closest to death.’
Now he is the complete opposite of Joe, he thrives on chaos, he likes it and embraces it. If there is one advantage he has over most of us, is his willingness to adapt and his mental flexibility. Not to mention his mental strength to marinade in the pool of uncertainty.
He literally lived with the mindset of. ‘It will all be ok in the end, if it is not ok, then it is not the end.’ They attributed the original quote above to Jon Lennon, but also Brazilian writer Fernando Sabino.
Returning to my chaos loving family member. I cannot understand this counterintuitive attitude that lives deep within him. But as the saying goes ‘One man’s meat, is another man’s poison.’
Let me tell you a secret, some of the most professional and organized ‘together’ people in the world are the most anxious. I am speaking of the professional business executive who knows every detail of everything that they manage, and even understands most of the detail, of the functions of people in departments adjacent to theirs.
When I see a completely amazing presentation by a very professional executive, that answers every question and challenge in a polished way, I know that this is a prime candidate for anxiety.
But why would such a person be anxious, they are in control and professional and ambitious and successful?
It’s exactly that, control, that feeling of planning for every eventuality that makes them professional and successful but also a high potential anxiety victim.
Having read through and researched several studies and articles on anxiety, I have stumbled upon my particular strain of anxiety, or at least something that best resonates with me when I feel anxious.
I have a low level tolerance for uncertainty, sometimes. The studies I have looked at describe animals that escape and flee uncertain situations, in order to survive and those that don’t, the impending danger consumes. Could this be true of us as humankind? Are we living in populations where most of the people on the planet are those that best navigated danger in the past? It makes sense, and perhaps that accounts for the higher levels of anxiety in our modern world?
Think about the pandemic and the continual media reporting, the focus on death and disease every day, can you imagine the stress that this would have caused in people with low tolerance levels of uncertainty? The last two years must have been a living hell for them.
The key to solving this highly activate state is working through our low levels of intolerance of uncertainty, becoming more mentally agile and dealing with problems as they arise. ‘Cross that bridge when you get to it’
It is about having confidence that we can navigate the storms of life, that we have within us an innate ability to survive and a powerful organ between our ears.
Confidence is a scarce and highly valued commodity in times of uncertainty, the confidence and self belief that we can and must navigate whatever confronts us. We are brave and can be brave, we can always stop and think. We can plan and restructure our thinking, we can look at problems from different perspectives. Let’s get creative in our problem solving, and treat challenges as something that will increase our power, our metal fortitude, and our ability to adapt.
In the profound but simple words of Dr Seuss from his book ‘Oh the Places You’ll Go,’ I quote. ‘You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You’re on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who’ll decide where to go…’
It's that flexibility to ‘roll with the punches’ that we need to tap into, to understand that we control very little and we have to become comfortable with change and being uncomfortable, having confidence that we will get through our current situation.
‘This too will pass.’ Our circumstance does not define us in any moment, rather we should not let it define us. We can think and navigate our way, and as we do we become stronger and of stronger character.
We learn from failures and from situations that are beyond our control, let’s embrace life and learn from the challenges we face, even failure, let’s learn to be comfortable with failure, every single successful person has learned this trick, to learn from failure, to persevere, and to increase mental flexibility.
Bad actors bring many anxieties about in our lives, and I am not speaking here of those situations, I am focussing more on general uncertainty, most people writing and reading on Medium are creative, and it is that creativity that empowers us to overcome and seek solutions that are buried deep within us.
Personally I am rewiring uncertainty as opportunity, opportunity to see things from a different perspective, an uncertainty puzzle to be solved. A challenge I know I can overcome, if none of us had overcome anything, we wouldn’t be here, so let’s take strength from that.
Let me know your thoughts?
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