How do we go about coping with anxiety? Well, I can’t promise it will work for everyone, but in my view the best – indeed the only – way is to live in the present rather than fretting about the past or brooding about the future. Too easily our thoughts become focused on what has happened or what might happen, and both can be equally destructive. Live in the here and now, and let tomorrow take care of itself – I’ve found that to be sound advice that has helped me genuinely not to worry these past ten years, despite living with incurable cancer and the numerous side effects brought on by treatment for it. As the Psalm writer said, ‘This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.’ Or as Jesus advised, ‘Let each day’s care be sufficient for itself.’ The following reflection, from my book The Teacher, pursues that theme.
Anxiety
Then I said to the Teacher, ‘Here is a puzzle. We enjoy lifestyles today that generations before us could scarcely have imagined, yet we seem to worry more than ever. Where are we going wrong?’
And the Teacher smiled and said, ‘How special is the light of each new day. How wonderful to greet the sunrise. However long you live, celebrate every moment of your life.’
And I understood that if we would be free from worry we must live for the present, not
brooding about what might be or what has been but celebrating the here and now. Yet, too often, our fears for tomorrow stop us from enjoying the delights of today, that which we fear might happen overshadowing what actually does.
I pressed the Teacher further though, protesting, ‘Surely we must plan ahead, look to the future. Do we not have a responsibility to our loved ones as well as ourselves?’
The Teacher nodded and said, ‘A wise person always keeps an eye open for possible problems and makes plans to deal with them – unlike fools, who can’t be bothered and end up suffering the consequences. Never, though, brag about what you have planned for tomorrow, for who can say what a new day might bring?’
And I realised that though we must plan for tomorrow, we must never brood about it; that it is futile to dwell on what the future might bring, or on things we cannot change. For while our fears may come true, they just as well may not, and what is certain is that worrying about them will make no difference either way.
‘But surely,’ I persisted, ‘we cannot help but worry sometimes, for catastrophe comes to all eventually, and to some more than others. Though it may not be helpful, is not worry natural?’
The Teacher nodded reflectively, but continued, ‘A word of encouragement helps to cheer people up, but anxiety weighs down the human heart.’
And I saw that though worry may indeed be understandable, we must learn to let it go, for the only thing worry will change is us – for the worst. It won’t stop our fears coming true, still less help us face them if they do. Rather, it will break our spirit, robbing us of the very strength we will need should crisis come. For, truly, it is not the things we worry about that hurt us the most but the act of worrying itself – our fear of fear.
And I recognised that the only way to conquer anxiety is to confront it; to stop running, stop looking over our shoulder, and face it head on. For when we let our fears do their worst, we expose them as foolish fantasies of the imagination and cause them to flee from us, rather than us from them.
My conclusion, then, is this: worry does not help us deal better with the future; merely makes us less able to cope with the present. Never ask, then, ‘What if ?’ Celebrate rather what is. And let that be sufficient for the day.