Think About Who You Answer To

The biggest problem with anxiety is that even when you aren't feeling nervous you are still suffering. Anxiety is often connected with deep depression and that is really not surprising. Social anxiety makes you feel broken and alone long after the nervousness fades. Simple interactions can leave you questioning yourself for weeks.

I tend to replay past conversations over and over in my mind. I should have said this. I should have done that. Constant questioning leaves you in a state of doubt of whether or not you can do anything at all without failing.

This means when I’m not feeling anxious I’m feeling depressed about feeling anxious at some other time. It feels like your life is a deep hole you can’t escape, but you can! My grandparents are very important to me and my grandmother especially is very supportive. She always tells me about being stressed out over a job to the point of nearly having a panic attack. My grandfather, being the logical man he is, sat her down and asked her what the worst thing that could happen was. She said she could get fired and his response was “so what.”

I think this is a good way to look at life. I think that I look at life and every event in it way too seriously. I feel that anxiety comes from pride. I know mine does. It’s very important that I do everything perfectly and because of that my assumption is that everyone else feels the same. I am not perfect and neither are you. Setting the bar slightly higher than you can achieve can be useful to push yourself further but the goal we have set for ourselves has only caused us grief. We will fall flat on our faces every time if we think anything less than perfect is unacceptable.  What Jesus did for us was because it is impossible for us to be anywhere near perfect.

That anxiety you feel may never disappear and you may have horrible bouts of depression multiple times a year but that is no reason to give up on yourself. You are not perfect and you will never be. It’s okay to make mistakes. So what if you stutter while speaking at work or can’t type a single word when your boss is standing over your shoulder? Everyone has flaws and God won’t blame you for it. Since God is who we answer to, don’t be worried about all the worldly mistakes you and I will undoubtedly make or the people that may want to judge you for them.

I’m always around if someone needs to talk so send me a message if you need to.

God bless,

David