I am writing this article in the midst of thinking about how to launch this blog (making this about 8 months old).
Unsuprisingly, I am thinking (read: worrying) about it a lot. I have started to overanalyse which blogs I like to read and why. Which ads I like and why. (Is it the colour? The font? The excellent copy?.
I have started carrying around a notebook for ideas and actually wrote by feel in the dark in a cab on the way home.
Anxiety serves us
I went to my doctor in the middle of a mild anxiety attack.
And she reminded me, as she always does, that anxiety stopped us from being eaten alive when we were cavemen. It sent blood streaming around our body to where we need it most. It enabled us to move quickly, and to think quickly. It allows us to plan, to think ahead. Because we were worried about what the future might hold if we did not.
I think about how this means I will not be eaten alive.
Some of the best decisions I make is when I am anxious
I often wonder how my projects at work would be if I did not worry about them. In meetings, while I am listening to the other goings on of the project, I write lists of things that we need to make sure we attend to and do not leave behind. I reprioritise reports and studies that I have been deprioritising for weeks. I wake up in the middle of the night and think of a question I should ask a supplier, or a way I could run the project better.
Which leads me to thinking that I often make my best decisions and do my best thinking when I am anxious.
But, the anxiety is mostly stupid
The doctor reads my mind, and reminds me that I am not going to be eaten alive. The anxiety serves us, but it is mostly stupid.
Often, we just need to take a day off.
Yes, use the time to think. To rest. To plan. To worry.
But also, to get over it.
And to get back into sync with the world.
So, on blogging
I was reading Penelope Trunk’s article on how to improve your mornings. I loved this article.
I loved it firstly because I want to improve my mornings.
But I was on my way home from a 14 hour day from Brisbane and I am tired. I don’t really want to learn. I just want to be distracted and read. And reading her blog always makes me smile. I learn about how people with Asberger’s often work better with a schedule because they prefer to know what is coming next and I wonder if a schedule could work for my morning.
And then I start wondering if my writing will ever be this good. Whether it will distract people enough from their current lives to make them smile, and maybe even to think about how they could do things differently. And I start to think that I never will. Penelope Trunk has followed the 10,000 hour rule. She has been writing obsessively for years. I will never be that good.
And then I remind myself that it doesn’t actually matter. That when I swim, I do not swim with any intention to beat the Thorpedo. When I make jokes I do not do it with the thought that maybe one day, with practice, I will be Robin Williams.
So my anxiety served me. It led me to writing this post.
But, it was mostly stupid.
Like this:
Like Loading...
Tags: anxiety, blogging
