Is it high stakes or just really annoying?
You know how when your boss or a government institution or even your kids ask you to complete some kind of task, maybe paperwork or a fiddly spreadsheet or digging up some old information, and it just makes you SO STRESSED OUT? Yeah, me too.
This kind of work tends to trigger all sorts of anxiety responses in me: my heart rate climbs, I start overthinking it, it keeps me awake at night. In other words, my body immediately reacts as though the stakes were very high. I’m in panic mode. But why?
It took me until this, my 50th year on Earth, to realize that my body is interpreting REALLY ANNOYING as REALLY IMPORTANT. Even when it isn’t.
I’m starting to recognize that I (like many of you, I’m sure) have a strong negative response to being asked to do something annoying. Even more so when I don’t see why I should or it feels pointless or bureaucratic. Somewhere in my body and mind though, this negative response feels very similar to the stress of being asked to do something really high stakes.
Of course, sometimes these tasks are high stakes: maybe your immigration status or financial stability depends on doing it fast and well. In those cases, I think a wee taste of panic is fine, to be expected.
In many cases, however, I think I’m inadvertently confusing my extreme annoyance with a sense that there might be dire consequences, even when I know in my head that there aren’t.
I don’t know why it’s taken me so long to notice this. Perhaps it’s perfectly obvious to you, my wise reader. But just in case it isn’t, maybe you’ll join me in asking yourself this question next time you feel yourself descending into an anxious doom-spiral over some kind of task: Is it high stakes, or just really annoying?
What I’m reading: Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within, by Natalie Goldberg. Zen and writing practice together? Yes please.
What I’m watching: Daily Tour de France highlights. I only care about pro cycling for ten minutes a day, 3 weeks a year.