I suffered from debilitating anxiety from about 2003-2013. But let’s call anxiety what it is—it’s fear—fear of something that might happen in the future. Fear that you might not get something you want, or fear that you might lose something you already have. For me, the fear was crippling—from the moment I woke up, to the moment I went to bed, I had unrelenting terror. Another name for this is catastrophic thinking—thinking that the worst possible thing is going to happen to you at any given time. We all suffer from this at one time or another.
How did that fear manifest? Mostly it was fear of authority. And when I was working at Lehman, it was fear of compliance and regulation. Why did I choose that as my fear? Probably from my childhood—my father was a menacing authority figure. Any authority, whether it was FINRA, the SEC, the IRS, or the police, struck fear into my heart. Not that I was doing anything wrong, mind you—I was a boy scout, simply because I didn’t want any interactions with authority. For ten years, I didn’t crack a smile, never laughed, and never enjoyed a moment of peace. Ten years, with nothing but implacable doom. Ten years of misery. Ten years of my life I’ll never get back. It was totally unnecessary.
Mind you, these were irrational fears. I had no reason to believe that I would be scooped up by FINRA, the SEC, the IRS, or the police. I made it up in my head. I made up a story in my head, and believed it, which is what all people do when they have anxiety. We all have very vivid imaginations. There is a quote—and I am forgetting it now—that we have experienced the worst possible things in the world in our minds—but none of it has ever happened. Isn’t that nuts? We put ourselves through all this bullshit for no reason. And we all do it.
Some people call this “worrying.” That’s the nice way of putting it. I say that worrying is praying for a bad outcome. And like I said, all fear is about the future—and why are we living in the future? We should be living in the present, in the moment, right now. And in the present, everything is fine. If there is something that will happen a month from now that you are worried about, are you going to make yourself miserable for an entire month until it happens? That doesn’t make any sense. I frequently tell myself: “I don’t have to decide this today.” And I wait until the last possible minute to make decisions, which eliminates fear and anxiety.
But the good news is that I am a success story—I beat the anxiety over time. And I did it without medication. I did it through work—yes, it was a lot of work. I had to change my attitudes and my thinking. But the point is that you can do it, too. Today, I am anxiety-free, and it is the most wonderful thing in the world. And I want to share my experience with you, because I want you to have what I have.
So here is the first thing to do: whenever you have a fear about something, write it down. The best place to do this is in the notes section of your phone. Just the act of writing down your fears is cathartic—it takes some of the power away. You’ll write it down, you’ll look at the words on your phone, and immediately, it won’t seem like as much of a big deal.
Now, when most people experience anxiety, they experience it in waves—they’ll be worrying about one thing for a couple of weeks, then another thing comes along that they’re afraid of, and they forget about the first thing. That’s why writing down your fears is so important—it creates a historical record. So if you’re diligent about writing down your fears for a period of months, here’s what happens: you’ll look on your phone, and you’ll have a list of about 12-15 fears, and you’ll look at the beginning of the list—and you’ll laugh. And you’ll say to yourself, “I had anxiety about that?” It’s ludicrous. It will seem almost humorous in retrospect. And if you continue doing this over the course of a few years, you will learn over time that every single one of your fears is an irrational fear, because none of it ever comes to pass. Nothing ever happens. Ever. That’s not to say that random bad shit doesn’t happen to people, but it’s never the things that you’re worried about. Ergo, it makes no sense to worry.
Now, I give a lot of people this advice, and not many people take it. I’m not sure why. I think people think that they don’t have to write stuff down because they will remember it—but you have to write it down, because months later, when you look at the beginning of that list, it will seem ridiculous. And you need to understand how ridiculous you are. We make up stories, and believe them. This is about happiness, my friends—if you live in the future with fear and anxiety, you are denying yourself happiness. So write this shit down. It will save your life.
The second thing that I would do is that I would bet people that a certain bad outcome would happen. Usually my wife. I would say to my wife, “I am going to jail.” She would reply, “You are not going to jail.” I was sure I was going to jail. So I would say to her, “How much you want to bet? I will bet you $2,000 that I am going to jail.” So she would bet me that I would not go to jail, and at the end of a few months, of course I would not be in jail, and I would have to pay her $2,000.
Over the years, I’ve bet (and lost) about $50,000 to my wife. I’ve bet as much as $10,000 on one outcome. I don’t bet her anymore. Why? Because she’s always right, because nothing ever happens. And losing all that money got to be painful after a while, and I learned my lesson. But at the time I’m making the bet, I’m so full of fear, I’m so convinced that something awful is going to happen that I’ll make that bet. And the act of making the bet makes me feel better temporarily—if someone is willing to bet an enormous amount of money on nothing bad happening, it definitely helps with my mental state.
But the most important thing to do in fighting fear isn’t something concrete, like writing stuff down or making bets. It’s about not believing that the world is a dangerous place, that random bad stuff happens all the time. That was the lesson I learned from 9/11, which I experienced up close and personal—random bad shit happens all the time. But it really doesn’t. The world is a very forgiving place, and people are resilient—we generally have the ability to bounce back from anything.
Everything is going to be ok. I’m sure you’ve had someone tell you this at some point in your life—and you didn’t believe them. But it really is going to be ok. And even if it’s not ok, it is still ok. Viktor Frankl wrote: “The one thing you can’t take away from me is the way I choose to respond to what you do to me. The last of one’s freedoms is to choose one’s attitude in any given circumstance.” Life has its ups and downs. People will die. Jobs will be lost. Pets will get sick. Kids will get arrested. The one gift we have is to be able to handle these situations with grace and dignity. It’s your choice.
Go fuck yourself,
Jared
Music Recommendation: The Buzztalk mix of Buzz by Above and Beyond feat. Tranquility Base. One of my favorite trance tracks of all time, from 2009. I just listened to it before dropping it in here and it gave me goose bumps.
P.S. We’re Gonna Get Those Bastards will always be free. Feel free to forward to as many people as you like.
That's a really great insight.
Good stuff.
Music suggestion: Gui Boratto - Mutante