Psychologists tell us that anxiety is an internally generated state. This means that when we perceive or believe that current circumstances are disrupting or threatening our security or other aspects of our otherwise comfortable and satisfying life, we tend to get upset or anxious.
For example, upset or disruption can threaten our safety, our health, our jobs and income, our family and relationships or our social pursuits. These upsets don’t need to be based on actual events. A tentative diagnosis of a serious illness that proves to be inaccurate can temporarily put us into an emotional tailspin. And what creates anxiety in one person may not affect another. Even if an event impacts a number of people in the same way, such as a destructive storm, some may feel it’s a disaster, and others might welcome it as an exciting event.
In the early 1930’s, a national radio station broadcast a realistic fictional program about an invasion of Earth by Martians. I bet you could still find recordings of it on the internet. There were announcements prior to the broadcast that this was all fictional, but many people listening didn’t hear the message that this was just entertainment. There was widespread panic nationwide with rioting. It took hours and much effort by law enforcement personnel to put an end to the panic. Rumors or innocent mistakes are all it takes to create anxiety. We can all remember the distress in Hawaii recently when civil defense personnel mistakenly sent out an alert that the state was under a ballistic missile attack. Talk about anxiety!
To be sure, there are plenty of factual concerns we’ve been dealing with in the United States that could easily cause people a great deal of stress, bringing on mild to severe anxiety. Job loss and wage stagnation ongoing over three decades, seemingly endless military conflict for fifteen years, strident political discord for the last decade, and international terrorist threats certainly are facts of our current age.
OK, what can we do about it? One of the best things to do would be to ignore everything that’s happening that doesn’t directly affect you. Wildfires in California or terrorist attacks in Israel affect a very tiny percentage of people. Why not Ignore the ongoing news coverage of such events? If you are unaffected or can do nothing to change the situation, focus on positive things in your life. Stay away from newspapers and news programs.
Even if you are affected or inconvenienced in a minor way, minimize it. We all experience minor inconveniences every day. So What! Focus on all the happy, kind, loving, harmonious, peaceful things in your life. Hug your grandkids, help a neighbor, take in a good movie.
How many people waste their time hating one politician or another, when in fact their activities impact us in minor way or not at all most of the time? They don’t know you exist and don’t care! Yet we go home in a funky mood and pop antacids. We can decide to stop that.
There is so much going on in the world that doesn’t affect you and that you can’t fix, yet it can destroy your peace of mind if you spend time paying attention to it. It can even make you sick.
There is much more good happening to us than bad almost all the time. Anxiety or joy is ours depending on what we pay attention to. And even with all the short-term upheaval, our lives are almost certain to be better in the future. Offending people in our lives will fade away, and we can still get an ice cream cone any time we want. As a young man, I thought my mom was a real Pollyannna. She just saw all the good in her life and didn’t listen to a thing that might “rain on her parade”. I thought she was a bit clueless, yet she was happy to the day she died. Now I appreciate her deep wisdom and what she taught me.
Tom Searcy, BBC
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