A brief essay concerning worry

This is a brief essay designed to discuss the phenomenon of worry other wise called angst or dread. Which may very well be the most persistent of all human emotions. It is imperative that the reader understand something from the get go. This is not an essay on how to conquer your anxiety at least not conquer completely. One of the presuppositions of this paper is that worry is not a phenomenon to be overcome but a reality to be experienced. This paper will attempt give the reader a brief overview of one of the fundamental assumptions of rational emotive behavior therapy. That assumption is that all forms of human worry stems from our fundamental misconceptions regarding how people view us, how we view our own abilities, and how we view other peoples imperfections and vices. From there I will discuss anxiety about anxiety and anxieties necessary place in our daily lives.

First I'm going to talk a bit about how people view us. More specifically I'm going to talk about a sure fire way to make yourself miserable, and that is by holding the erroneous belief that the people you view as significant actually have to like you. One of the things we all have to come to grips with as human beings is that many of the people we would hope would like us just don't. This can take various forms the most common being unrequited love and infatuation, but it can also exist in cases of unrequited desire for friendship, etc. There is absolutely nothing wrong with finding it painful when those whom you seek desire and affection from don't provide you attention or care, but it is quite another thing to contend that they must care for you, or that you can't stand them not caring for you. The truth of the matter is that instances of unrequited care are inevitably painful, but they are also bearable. Not only is it not necessary that those who you hold to be significant others approve of you, but it's downright impractical to suspect that all of them would. It is very often ones expectations concerning their approval that causes them the most grief not the disapproval on its own. This world certainly cannot disappoint you on its own it needs your help.

Next I'd like to talk about a second misconception people often tell themselves explicitly or implicitly, and that is "I must be thoroughly competent, adequate, and achieving in all respects if I'm going to consider myself worthwhile. Most of us aren't prodigies, and if were really being honest most of us don't even have one thing that were tremendously good at. As a quick side note it should be mentioned that success often entails competition which implicitly entails weighing our abilities against others rather than assessing them on there own.(quick lesson in mental hygiene: you'll drive yourself mad doing that so don't) As with the previous example it should be noted that wanting to succeed is beneficial to your growth, but needing to succeed is not only irrational it can turn down right self deprecating.

The third commonly held irrational belief people have is that human being must treat each other nicely, and if an individual treats them or some one else unkindly than that individual is no damn good. Not only are they no damn good but they should be punished. Human beings are incredibly complex creatures it follows that the misactions they engage often times have reasons that are equally complex. If your actually interested in whether other people behave themselves appropriately then try to help them behave themselves appropriately. If you can do that--as long as they're not committing a deviant crime, in which case call the police--then get over it. Tell yourself its too damn bad they keep doing bad things, always keeping in mind that it is most likely bearable.

Fourth item on the list is anxiety concerning anxiety itself. Human beings are such tremendously talented screwballs that we actually carry the capacity to worry about the fact that we worry. One thing that can aid you in this endeavor is remember that anxiety is a natural, fundamental portion of being a human being. Humans are basically just advanced apes that have grown the ability to drive themselves crazy through self reflection. If you are a human it is inevitable that to some degree you will be pathological, neurotic, explosive, and just sad. It helps to remember that you're not super human you're not going overcome human emotion, but if you're really serious about it you might figure out how to understand and deal with human emotion.

Last but not least I'd like to say a little something about anxiety's necessary place in our lives. I mentioned in the beginning of the paper that anxiety is not a phenomenon to be overcome but a reality to be experienced. I think one should take this proposition very seriously. By engaging wholly in one's negative emotions as well as one's positive ones one lays claim to the fullness of ones humanity, and gets to experience life in a way very few people do: as fully alive. Anxiety is not only a device for scaring you shitless it's part of what gives us the capacity for empathy and it's the driving force behind all philosophical and academic endeavors. If we didn't understand pain we would try to help others with their and if we weren't made to be worried by that which we did not know there would be no reason to attempt to know anything at all. In short existential angst is necessary portion of a complete human experience.

In closing I'd like to go over the main take away points from this paper and those are 1)Most of the time you're hyper-worried it's probably just you being irrational. 2) If the whole world was covered in broken class you wouldn't try to cover the world in leather you'd just put on shoes. So in exactly the same way you'll have better luck changing your expectations out of reality than reality itself. 3) Anxiety is a normal an natural portion of the human condition don't try to transcend rather trying to integrate into your life in a healthy fashion.