Living Life Scared... Complaining ... Misery

Anxiety is probably a small part of everything we do.  Of course we like to tell ourselves far reaching things about our motivations (equality driven motives like justice and fairness seem to list disproportionately high when talking about society as a whole, or providing for one's family seems a noble anti-egalitarianism on a more individual level), but when it comes right down to it, anxiety provides the mechanics for movement and productivity, as well as excitement.  "Showing those people" that we are able to do something is probably code for having the anxiety that "those people" produced in us a while back.  They often don't exist in our lives after a few years anyway, though the feelings they produced in us does exist.

So we can't just extinguish anxiety out of our lives.  It doesn't work like that.  We instead have to learn to come to terms with our anxieties, and slowly, incrementally, find a way to deal with them, without the overarching notion that we can get rid of them once we realize them.  Realization is only half the battle.  The real half, the grit of the matter, is about living life and being aware of all of the things that make us, however seemingly unnecessary, totally fucking bonkers.   Personally, if I look around and see a crowd of people, and I am forced (because of work or other social reasons) to exist within those people, then I get fairly anxious.  I'd like to leave.   After about an hour, I begin to feel better, and can even become a ravingly social person.  But without giving myself the ability to transition, and withholding quick emotional responses to the situation that tend to label other people as products of my anxiety, then I don't get very far without feeling miserable.

And misery, well, it is everywhere.  I listen to coworkers complain about other coworkers for half the day.  I'm not sure there is an antidote.  It drives me up the wall.  I understand the function of such complaints logically, but I simply don't grasp their pettiness in the moment.  We're vivid complainers, especially when we have nothing to complain about.  I'm not sure why that is, except that it increases group coherency, maybe.

Anyway, the point is not to internalize fear immediately and believe that you (or I) are (am) flawed.  We're not flawed.  We're human.  Sometimes the hardest thing to do is not jump to conclusions about ourselves, that we're failures, that we're rock stars, and just keep trying, over and over, and over again, all the while having some courage to face new activities and try again when things don't work out.  Easy to say, I know.