Wednesday, March 20, 2019

Can I Please Calm Down for a Second?

So I'm between jobs right now. I guess I've already said that on here, but it's important information for this post. As you might imagine, I spend a good amount of time sitting in my parents' living room in my bathrobe, scrolling through job listings, agonizing over cover letters, and periodically slamming my laptop shut after deciding there's no hope for me to ever find a way to support myself, move out on my own, and adopt a dog.

Back in early January, when I was counting down the days for my internship to end, I was disheartened I hadn't found a job to transition to, but I comforted myself with the thought that I'd have some time off to sort out my priorities, give my life a good think-over, and complete some of the projects I'd been putting off. I became more and more optimistic about what I could accomplish with some peace and quiet...Clean my room! Declutter everything I have in storage! Start an Etsy shop! Write freelance! Submit articles to other blogs! Start a new blog! Scrapbook! Discover my life's meaning and purpose through intense introspection! See a new psychiatrist and sort out my cluttered mind! Watch public television programs about old houses! Write new songs! Record old songs! Learn to paint!

I have attempted all of those things, but after awhile, I usually throw up my hands in frustration, not knowing how to organize my thoughts enough to see a project through, or questioning whether the project was "really how I should be spending my time right now." As a result, my days have included a lot of the stuff I did when I was working, only done more intensely because I don't have a job to distract myself: Worry about my past! Worry about my future! Worry about the present! Wonder what I should be doing now! Wonder what I should do with my life! Wonder what hobby I should take up! Start Etsy shop but can't finish products! Start blog but writes 2k words of nonsense, which I promptly backspace! Start vlogging, but give up after two videos!

I've found myself worrying almost constantly about whether I'm good enough...good enough to be hired, to be dated, to be published, to be recognized, to accomplish, to write, to sing, even to talk. I undermine anything I undertake because I constantly question myself. Instead of doing what I enjoy because I enjoy it, I've turned everything into some last-ditch chance to prove myself before it's too late. What am I trying to prove? To whom am I trying to prove these unnamed things? Why is the need to prove myself to immediate?

It's the damn anxiety.

My anxiety makes me feel like I need to prove my worth by contributing to the world and gaining recognition and admiration. My social anxiety has me looking left and right for some validation. I don't want to be that shy, late blooming loser nobody notices that I was all through elementary school and adolescence...even college. After so many failed friendships and terminated romantic relationships, I want to prove my intelligence and have people recognize my value and uniqueness. After being seen as the shy girl with nothing to say when I was, in reality, bursting to show my personality but too terrified to speak, I want people to know I have talent, creativity, and a sense of humor.

All this anxiety is exacerbated by, 1) societal messaging that people's worth is measured by their notoriety (even though we then tear those people to shreds), and, 2) my religious background, which pushes a sense that you are never enough and constantly need to try harder.

Obviously, much ink has been spilled about the former point. Social media and celebrity culture ingrain in us the concept that being famous means you're valuable and getting attention means you're, well, worth noticing. And if you're worth noticing, you have a voice that people listen to, whether it comes to social activism or launching a music career. And if you have a voice that people listen to, you get paid. Being famous really sounds awful if you think and/or read about it, but we've been duped to believe it means we have worth and purpose...and happiness. So we constantly pursue it and hate ourselves when we only have 90 followers. In reality, I might very well like myself less if I had 9,000 followers, because more people would criticize, troll, and pick fights with me. But I can't rid myself of the idea that then I'd finally be important and admired.

The religious component of this is more interesting to me though. I've talked about on here before how I realized a couple years ago that my anxiety had come to rule my faith, creating a feedback loop where my anxiety about being religious enough made me scrutinize every aspect of my life and constantly make unrealistic resolutions to pray more, read my Bible more, make God more of a priority, etc. that I could never achieve, so then I felt worse about myself. I'm not sure whether my natural inclination to worry started my anxiety related to religion or the pressure I was under in my religious community prompted the increase in my anxiety, but the began to feed off of each other.

I took a break from my faith back in 2015, unsure of whether I was still religious and burnt out from all the years of trying so hard to be super religious. I had hit a wall and I needed space to examine the tradition I had grown up in to see if it still fit me. I didn't want to be a "stereotypical" young adult who sheds his/her/their parents' faith with disgust when he/she/they reach adulthood, but I had to face the fact that I was no longer as sure of my beliefs as I once was.

I have been on an interesting journey since, still trying to navigate what I believe and disentangle what is just tradition/how I was raised vs. healthy spiritual belief and practice. More recently, this has further evolved into a closer examination of the background I grew up in and whether it was healthy emotionally, spiritually, and mentally or not. I wish I had the bandwidth to write more about this, but I'm still working on sorting a lot out. So while I hope to write more about my religious/spiritual journey one day, it's hard to know whether that day will be tomorrow or in a decade.

Anyways, I say all this because I realized yesterday that this constant, unrealistic, unhealthy pressure I put on myself to perform, achieve, find my purpose, contribute, prove my worth, etc., is a continuation of that unhealthy messaging I received constantly growing up in the church. In past months, when I've gone to churches like the one I grew up in, I've been annoyed to hear the same message over and over, no matter the pastor or congregation: "Are you trying hard enough in your relationship with God? Are you praying enough? Are you spending time reading your Bible? Are you truly seeking God?" Maybe for some folks this is a helpful reminder, but I also think it can lead to an unhealthy mindset of constant anxiety and insecurity...you're never good enough, you're never doing enough, you need to have everything figured out, you need to be visibly improving as a person and contributing to the world in some way.

Realizing I was still letting this unhealthy pressure (that I think, frankly, gets away from what should be the real emphasis of Christianity...God loving us despite our flaws) still rule over my life was helpful. Today, I'm trying to tell myself that I don't owe anybody anything. I don't have to contribute anything to the world. I don't have to figure my purpose and beliefs out right at this very moment. It's okay to surrender to the process of time and circumstance. Oftentimes, it takes certain life events, conversations, interactions, books, etc. to help you evolve and clarify your beliefs and values. Same thing goes for figuring out your life vocation or even just finding hobbies or advocacy projects you love. Life involves a lot of downtime when nothing especially exciting is happening, but often those interludes are crucial to shaping us in ways we may not even notice, preparing us for the bigger projects.

I remember the summer after my freshman year of college, I somehow ended up with nothing to do. I had pursued a couple of opportunities for the summer but they all fell through, so I found myself twiddling my fingers, hoping all the doors had closed because some great project would fall in my lap. That didn't really end up happening, but something I'm much more grateful for did: About halfway through this summer of lethargy, I happened to find my sister's guitar laying out and I picked it up. I had tried to teach myself guitar in high school, but it never really caught on. This time, however, it did. I started putting some old poetry I had written to chords and wrote my first two songs. Thus, all the seemingly fruitless attempts at music and songwriting in my past finally materialized into something that has become an essential part of me. And I doubt that would have materialized had I been busy with a "real job" or grand project of some sort.

Anyways, it's incredibly difficult to get away from the pressurized mindset of "Go, go, go, do, do, do. Prove your worth. You're not worth anything unless you've cured a disease by age 25." But I think this pressure can make us too panicked to find our passion, or ultimately burn us out when we do.

It's okay to take your time. It's okay to relax. It's okay to drown out all of your parents' friends asking you what you're doing with your time.

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