I struggle with anxiety. Or, to be more accurate, I struggle with anxiety when I’m not busy.
Here’s why… When I’m not busy, my body may just be sitting around, but my brain keeps going full speed. Without a productive focus, those thoughts go all over the place, including – and especially – to my problems. I start imagining worst case scenarios. And I don’t just mentally experience the worst thing, I mentally experience EVERY bad thing that I can think of.
Our culture of leisure has helped fuel this. We think that we want “time off,” but that time is often spent either on self-destructive pursuits or worrying about things that we know we should be doing.
Believe me, I can be as lazy as the next person. But I’ve come to understand that productive work is a blessing, not a curse. We were meant to contribute, to serve in some way (or, more likely, many ways). It’s hard-wired into us, so much so that many of us spend our days playing games so that we feel that we accomplished something (even though those accomplishments are a complete illusion).
You were meant for more than that. So let’s break the cycle, put down our phones, and get busy.
“Although fear can be explained away, it’s far more effective to replace it. With what? Competence. With training. With tasks. With a job that needs to be done.” – Ryan Holiday
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