👋 Hey phi-lazy-phers
Like so many people, I’ve struggled with anxiety for a while now. It’s taken a lot of work, but it has become more manageable over the last year and a half (yay therapy). However, it never really goes away, does it? Just last week I had a small panic attack.
The prevalence of all mental disorders increased 50% from 1990 to 2013 and now over 264 million people across the globe have anxiety. Clearly, this isn’t a problem that can be fixed by the end of an email. It’s important to note, though, anxiety disorders are highly treatable. If you have the means for therapy, I recommend looking into it. If you don’t, there are many free or heavily discounted programs available as well.
For the minor occurrences of anxiety and worry, here are a few ideas to think about from some of history’s brightest thinkers.
Kahlil Gibran
Our anxiety does not come from thinking about the future, but from wanting to control it.
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Seneca
Nothing is so wretched or foolish as to anticipate misfortunes. What madness it is to be expecting evil before it comes.
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Charles F. Glassman
Fear and anxiety many times indicate that we are moving in a positive direction, out of the safe confines of our comfort zones, and in the direction of our true purpose.
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Corrie Ten Boom
Worrying is carrying tomorrow's load with today's strength—carrying two days at once. Worrying doesn't empty tomorrow of its sorrow, it empties today of its strength.
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Dale Carnegie
Do you remember the things you were worrying about a year ago? How did they work out? Didn't you waste a lot of fruitless energy on account of most of them? Didn't most of them turn out all right after all?
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Swedish Proverb
Worry often gives a small thing a big shadow.
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John O'Donohue
We rush through our days in such stress and intensity, as if we were here to stay and the serious project of the world depended on us. We worry and grow anxious; we magnify trivia until they become important enough to control our lives. Yet all the time we have forgotten that we are but temporary sojourners on the surface of a strange planet spinning slowly in the infinite night of the cosmos.
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Marcus Aurelius
If you are pained by external things, it is not they that disturb you, but your own judgment of them. And it is in your power to wipe out that judgment now.
I love the quote from John O’Donohue because it reminds me of another from Bertrand Russell: “All such philosophies spring from self-importance, and are best corrected by a little astronomy.” He was referring to optimism and pessimism, but I think the sentiment applies to anxiety as well. There’s something about staring up at the stars or contemplating the vastness of the cosmos—or, conversely, the tiny universes of bacteria & creatures we’re still discovering in the depths of the oceans—that usually brings me back to a simple conclusion about the problem I’m facing: this isn’t that significant.
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Thanks for reading this issue—it’s my hope Lazy Philosophy will provide you with real value each week. If you have topics you’d like to see covered in future issues, reply to this post or DM me on Twitter.
✌️Until next week, happy philosophizing.
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