I have this thing that bothers me.
It bothers me so much that it wears me down to the bone, like a drug slowly poisoning me from the inside out.
And after all these years, living with it day after day, it has cost me so, so much.
What I’m talking about is my anxiety. Not just in one particular thing, but in almost everything.
I often get nervous when I’m abroad for work. Not because I have to care for a toddler while running a camp for thirty kids and parents in a foreign land, but what if something bad happens to him? What if we can’t get access to medical services in case of an emergency? Or that he might fall and break his arm, or get bitten by a snake, or get hit by a car? What if he gets lost in the forest, or worse still, kidnapped by a group of evil villagers? What if he adds to the million-and-one things I’m already anxious about?
I’m not saying these aren’t reasonable things to think about, and as parents we take precaution because that’s what we do. But up until this point, none of them actually happened—or at least not in a way I feared it might.
So when I say that this “thing” has cost me, I don’t mean in a financial sense but in every other sense. How much energy have I wasted by worrying? How much joy has been robbed because I could not accept the fact that my kid is doing just fine without me? How many more moments am I going to miss because I could not take my mind off work? And how long am I going to allow my emotions to overwhelm me when I start stressing out about the lamest of things?
Though it’s not something to be inhaled or a pill to be popped, anxiety masquerades as a vice. I reach for it to feel the rush, yet after, I feel worse off. It steals my peace. It divides my relationships. It disrupts my time. And for what?
The philosopher Seneca, I recalled, said something about how humans suffer more in imagination than reality. Anxiety, he says, is like “a tragedy that feeds on itself.” It’s one of those things that takes everything, but gives nothing. And even if we do manage to get a bit of assurance, it’s fleeting because another worry is patiently waiting to take its place. We are, by nature, aware of its existence, but not enough to realise we are a slave to it, for we are completely ignorant to the fact that it traps us in an endless loop of fear and misery, to the point where it causes us to fall behind.
I say this not to judge, but because, like I’ve said, I myself have been a victim.
I think about this myself all the time. As his Dad, am I giving my son the freedom to build real, solid confidence without imposing my insecurities? That vacation could have been way more fun and worthwhile if I hadn’t nagged about how we should all leave the hotel room by a particular time. And I’m sure my relationships could have been more meaningful and genuine if I hadn’t succumbed to imaginary, hypothetical scenarios. But I only always think about my actions, yet do nothing about them.
It doesn’t just rob us of our resources. It adds unnecessary burden to our already chaotic lives. In your head, you play out vivid details of what might go wrong, costing you not just the psychological energy, but also physical and emotional and social, energy that could have been expended for other, more meaningful pursuits. We live like this everyday, waiting for things to happen, while the moments that needed our attention are lost forever.
See how toxic this is?
The airport isn’t anxious about us being late. The politics aren’t attacking us. Our kids, our jobs, our health—these aren’t the sources of our anxiety. We are. They are merely external things, existing. And yet, we are internally triggered by their existence.
Yet, if we are the cause, we can be the solution, too.
I think one of the reasons why we get trapped in anxiety is because we fail to break free from our own thoughts, and that often happens when we do life in isolation. Which is why, one of the things I absolutely love about our Gosh! Kids overseas creative-culture camps is the social interactions and communities we form during the camp. Families from different walks of life come together into one common space for a week and practically “live” side by side. Through this, we get to witness firsthand what everyone’s “style” is—that by seeing how other families do it, it challenges our preconceived notions about life, our parenting habits, our assumptions, our worries, our fears. Because another kid is doing it, allowing my kid to run free isn’t as dangerous as I’d imagined it to be. Because another kid is climbing a tree, walking barefoot in mud, and is left on his own to explore, allowing my kid to also do that is not that big of a deal. See how this works? And what I once thought was "unsafe" turns out to be an opportunity for growth.
So community, in this sense, is not about being around others, but about learning through others. It teaches us a whole lot, not just about our parenting styles, but about ourselves. It reminds us that we are not the only ones with anxiety. It reminds us that no matter our past, our fears, our worries, there’s a way out, and by being around others who are “less anxious,” we can always find the light at the end of the tunnel.
But even if we do learn through a community, we cannot entirely break free from it. The what-ifs still linger in our minds. Our imaginations distort reality. We feel trapped. We’re held hostage by our very own thoughts.
So, I think, it’s not about eradicating anxiety from our lives (which is impossible), but like our finances, we can be more efficient at managing it.
If you’re spiritual, pray. If you’re isolated, seek community. If you’re burdened, talk to someone, seek a therapist, be in the presence of people who can encourage you. This is why, if we want to be successful at parenting or at any endeavour in life, we need to be grounded in the right environment. Take control of this, and it will change your life.
Anxiety—it’s expensive. It’s costly. And it’s definitely not worth it.
For the sake of ourselves, for our loved ones, strive to get better at managing it each day. We hold the power to control how we feel about certain things, about certain outcomes, about the so-called worries and fears that plague our mind.
But it takes time. It takes practice. It takes intention.
I’m working on it, and I hope you are, too.
