It is not unusual for us to seek ways to escape uncomfortable feelings. When boredom arises, for instance, many of us instinctively reach for our phones or turn to one habit or another to distract ourselves. There is nothing inherently wrong with these habits. My interest in this piece is not to criticize them, but rather to explore what makes them so appealing in the first place. What is it about these strategies that helps us move away from feelings we would rather not experience?
For the purpose of this discussion, let us focus on anxiety.
WordWeb defines anxiety as “a vague unpleasant emotion that is experienced in anticipation of some (usually ill-defined) misfortune.” While this definition captures the discomfort associated with anxiety, I have come to see it somewhat differently. From where I stand today, anxiety appears to be both impersonal and safe. In fact, I have begun to wonder whether it serves a purpose beyond the temporary discomfort it creates.
Perhaps anxiety exists, in its own way, to prepare us for life. Perhaps it is part of the mind’s attempt to help us navigate uncertainty and respond to what lies ahead. This is why I say that anxiety, and indeed all emotions, are inherently safe. They may be uncomfortable, but discomfort and danger are not the same thing.
On a deeper level, I know this to be true, even if I do not always remember it in the moment. Day by day, my attitudes and behaviors continue to align with this understanding. I am learning that I do not need to live in fear of certain emotions. Anxiety does not need to be resisted, fought, or treated as an enemy. And neither do any of the other feelings that pass through us as human beings.
The thing about anxiety is that it is simply a natural response. The mind, acting innocently enough, attempts to move into the future in search of certainty. It wants answers. It wants guarantees. It wants reassurance that everything will unfold according to plan. The problem, however, is that certainty about the future is something the mind can never fully obtain.
As a result, it begins to speculate. “What if this happens?” “What if they ask me that?” “What if things go wrong?” It constructs scenarios and rehearses outcomes, as though life were obligated to follow the script it has written. Yet experience continually shows us that reality rarely unfolds exactly as imagined. Life has a way of surprising us, both in pleasant and unpleasant ways.
This is where anxiety can become misleading. It pulls our attention away from the life that is actually happening and into a future that exists only in thought. Physically, we remain in the present moment, but mentally we are living somewhere else, emotionally invested in events that have not happened and may never happen.
The more we recognize that our lives are always unfolding in the present, the easier it becomes to see the limitations of anxiety. After all, the past exists only as memory, and the future exists only as imagination. Both are experienced through the lens of the present moment. The now is not merely part of life; it is where life is actually lived.
If I were to summarize my point as simply as possible, it would be this: anxiety, like all emotions, is inherently safe, but it is not nearly as useful as we often assume. We are at our best when we are engaged with the reality before us rather than preoccupied with an unknowable future. Life asks us to respond to what is here, not to what our minds imagine might be waiting around the corner. The more rooted we are in the present moment, the more capable we become of meeting life’s challenges with clarity, wisdom, and resilience.
Restpiration 