Anxious moments

Have you noticed the level of anxiety people carry with them these days? The more we speed up our lives the greater the worry. People are afraid of losing their jobs,families or homes. We have money worries, health anxiety, complexes, phobia’s and obssessions. Yet this is the generation which had it all the blackberries, nike shoes, two car garages and a lifestyle to be envied.

Could it be the more we have the greater the fear of losing it? Could it be the more pressure to accumulate to achieve the greater the anxiety we may not measure up? As life speeds up are we constantly in a state of being somewhere else even before we get there?

There is an increase in people being treated for anxiety disorders and mental conditions. People are clinging to every new self help book desperate to find answers to their fatigue, fears and things which can not be explained away. There is a rise in people sufferring from OCD why because we are feeling out of control in a world where even the roof over our head is not a given any more.

People don’t have time to be there for anyone anymore and its hard to talk to really talk about the deep stuff when you are not looking into a face of compassion but a screen of a blackberry. Its hard to feel connected to someone who cuts of your conversation to answer the vibrating mobile phone in their pocket. Nothing says you are important to me than “hold that thought while I talk to this other person for 20 minutes while you sit opposite me trying not to look offended”.

We get anxiety over food we don’t have time to enjoy it, cook it we are filling up on fast food or conversing starving ourselves to measure up to some impossible ideal of what ‘perfect’ is. Take a look around the bus or train no one is smiling anymore they are busy moving onto the next thing before they have even finished what they are doing. I am not sure I want to turn my life into a race to the finish line I think I want to slow down and make the most of the time I have here. We have all heard people having grown old say I don’t know where the time went?

Heres the thing when you are really enjoying what you are doing when you are feeling joy happiness embracing what life has to offer and I dont mean the material things, then time does indeed stand still.

When we are doing something we love time becomes irrelevant, when we rushing from one thing to another time slips through our fingers. When we are eating a fast food meal of convenient we barely notice the taste texture or smell. Yet when we have a family/friends meal of conversation and genuine interest in what is happening in each others lives words linger mouthfuls are savored and you take your time because there is no where else to be.

Maybe it is just me maybe I am idealistic or cynical which ever the case may be. Yet don’t those who have stopped trying to fill up their lives and started to live it instead don’t they seem far happier than the rest? Ah what a world it would be where no one needed to check their emails every hour, where people did base their worth on how many contacts the blackberry held. Wouldn’t it be nice if a meal didn’t need to be upsized to fill you up and tomorrow was not filled up a week ahead. I am feeling less stressed already!