500 Words a Week - Get out of your head

“Imagine how effective you would be if you weren’t anxious all the time.” – Naval

Whenever doing something for the first time, working in a new environment, speaking in front of people, posting something, I have a sense of nervousness and anxiety which I’m sure others experience also. Immediately after whatever we were nervous for, we tend to think how did we let ourselves get so worked up. Our worries and nervousness were unwarranted. The second time we go to do what originally had us worried, much of that anxiety and nervousness is quelled.

About time (spoilers alert), is a movie were a man learns he has the power to travel back in time to moments he has lived before. During the course of the movie, his father (who can also time travel) offers him advice on how to best use his power. He tells his son to live each day twice, first, with all the everyday tensions and worries, but the second time noticing the joy in every moment. Soon, the son begins to stop time traveling, and realizes it’s best to live each day once and appreciate everything that enfolds during it.

We should apply this thinking to when we are about to do something that makes us feel anxious. We know immediately after it we will be surprised with how anxious we let ourselves get. So why not seek to enjoy the moment more.

“I had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened.” – Mark Twain

We allow ourselves to worry so much about the potentials that it’s impossible to have any sort of enjoyment in the moment.

The above reminded me of how Yuval Noah Harari described Buddhism in the book “Sapiens”. In Siddharta Gautama’s travels (the central figure of Buddhism), he found that no matter what the mind suffers it usually reacts with craving, and craving always involves dissatisfaction. When the mind experiences something distasteful, it craves to be rid of it. When the mind experiences something pleasant, it craves the feeling will last and intensify. The mind is always dissatisfied and restless. Gautama found that to escape the vicious cycle, if, when the mind experiences something pleasant or unpleasant, it simply understands things as they are, then there is no suffering. If you experience joy without craving that the joy will linger and intensify, you continue to feel joy without losing your peace of mind.

How often, when out with those close to us do we let our mind wander to something we are feeling nervous or worried about. Not only do we begin to feel anxious over this but it has affected our ability to enjoy ourselves with our friends.

To conclude, Master Oogway from Kung Fu Panda put it better than I ever could.