To the Anxious Adult
The blessing of chance meetings and getting creative while holding on
It was one cold Saturday evening in Tokyo and I just wanted to go home after my session at the gym. I ended up canceling dinner with some friends as I was not only physically drained but also socially exhausted for the week. I knew, however, that I had to grab something to eat before heading back because I hadn’t gone grocery shopping as of late. An empty stomach would only leave me restless and unable to sleep later at night.
I went to the closest coffee shop and in an unexpected turn of events, I was invited to sit with a Filipino couple after trying to help them out at the cashier with my broken Japanese. They were on a holiday trip with their family in Tokyo. Hours of talking went by and I noticed myself feeling lighter. We surprisingly chatted the whole night until the shop closed and were asked to leave.
When I meet new people or acquaintances I’m not close to, I’m usually my energetic-always-smiling-and-curious self. I don’t force it. It just comes out on its own. On a draining day, I’d normally ask to take my leave first before my low-power-mode self switches on and my brain shuts off. But that wasn’t the case this particular evening. I was genuinely hooked on this conversation with this couple as if I was being recharged with time.
I haven’t met new people in this fashion for quite a while. On a regular day, I’m not one to strike up a conversation with a stranger or to put myself in situations where I could meet new people after all. My younger self would have been able to do it in a breeze but not this mid-20s version of me. It felt refreshing to have conversations about career, life, politics, and anything under the sun with people I’m not acquainted with by formal association through an institution (a.k.a. school). It was a new and insightful experience, and I went home hopeful and inspired. Now and then, I would wonder if I’ll be able to recreate or have a similar experience again.
Over some time now, I realized that on the days when I don’t even notice that I’m not feeling too well inside, the universe tends to send people to look after me, to leave me in someone’s care — whether it be in the form of a kind gesture, a warm message, hug, or meal, or a nonjudgemental conversation. And these kind people around me — stranger and not — somehow always came through.
These chance encounters, while always unexpected and so simple, have such striking and lasting impacts. At times, they’d even act as a buffer dampening the blow of what’s to come and making sure that I come out unscathed or as less troubled as I possibly could.
However, the reality is that I can’t be at the mercy of the highs that I get from these encounters. They don’t come in such frequency after all. It’s still up to me to pick myself up on overwhelming and anxiety-filled days.
For someone who enjoys reading self-help, it’s thoroughly known and discussed that discipline keeps you going through the hard days. Discipline will help you get the job done even when the motivation isn’t there.
“Discipline is freedom.”
Freedom from distraction, confusion, and hesitation.
But what do you do on days when you simply don’t have the mental strength or fortitude to show up and just go through it?
What do you do when you don’t have it in your tools to face whatever it is that needs your facing? What would you do then?
Where do you look to for help?
One night, I bombarded myself with all these questions in hopes that knowledge of their answers would get me moving. I was feeling mentally weak, conflicted between defending myself for sounding like I was making excuses, feeling helpless, and trying to believe in myself at the same time. It was as if I was caught in the storm of my thoughts, my vision was clouded and I couldn’t hear anything well no matter how hard I focused.
Yet, deep inside I knew that knowledge of the answers isn’t what will help me through this obstacle. A part of me knew the things that I should be doing to relieve myself from my dilemma. The problem was my inaction despite this knowledge.
The thing is… Life isn’t a thinking game. Occasionally, it is. But most of all, it’s a living game and to be human is a being game.
You could have all these anxieties, all these worries. And though these things are anything but impermanent, getting caught in them for months or even weeks could feel like an infinitesimally lengthy amount of time.
The moment that I was lost in my thinking, I couldn’t even tell what it was that I was seeking despite all the questions that I’d laid out on the table. It was only by chance that I met and talked to certain people who showed me a different perspective — a different what and how— to my situation.
My narrative looked very different in the eyes of a friend, a mentor, and a stranger. It’s exactly the same story, but how come they were able to perceive, interpret, and verbalize it differently? And that’s when I knew that I needed to get out of my head and in touch with the community and the world around me.
I got so used to how I told my story to myself and was unknowingly in need of a nudge — a pinch of creativity and inspiration from others. Hearing how my story sounded through the words of another human being gave me an idea as to which angles, parts, or crevices to view and address my current troubles.
It still catches me off guard how much other people see and believe in us —in our abilities and our potential— while we’re so blinded by our doubts subconsciously blocking ourselves from using our real strength and harnessing our creativity.
It was through a series of encounters and conversations that I’ve had during these uneasy times that I was able to come to my senses. It’s as if that cloud of worry and uncertainty slowly cleared up and I felt capable of doing things again. But we humans have always been capable of doing things in the first place, haven’t we?
So to my anxious adult self, I’d just like to remind you with this last spurt of creativity I had in the midst of keeping it together and not losing myself:
“I am anxiety.”
Even the English language thinks it’s wrong. Your grammar checkers would automatically highlight this sentence wrong.
It could be a part of you but it doesn’t define who you are. You could be anxious, worried, or stressed, but you are also talented, skilled, and smart on top of all those emotions that you are feeling. You are not your anxiety.
You too are not your dream but the bearer and executor of it. If the weight of it gets too heavy, share it with people who can carry it out with you. Sharing it does not dilute it or make it any smaller but it does make the load of it much lighter.
And on the other hand, many other things also hold truth:
“I am a blessing, a beauty, a body of different stories — great and small.”
Even the English language won’t have to correct you.
