Stress and Anxiety

As I sit in front of my laptop, staring at a blank document. Trying to remember the entire week I had to write this article which I didn’t do. Not that I didn’t have the time to write it, but I guess I was more inclined towards finding the motivation to write it. By motivation I honestly mean I needed the push of the approaching deadline. I wasn’t stressed or anxious about the article up until this point but now it’s dawning on me that I have finally run out of excuses I was giving myself to put off writing this article. The mindless meaningless routine that I adhered to this entire week was numbing my productivity and as a result, I have nothing ticked on my to-do list. This isn’t the first time I have been in this spot. I tell myself that I work my best when I am under pressure. This delusion somehow has rendered me useless to appreciate the dedicated time to complete a task and I would rather wait for a last-minute miracle than take my time and do it in a stress-free environment. As I sped through tying my thoughts onto a screen, I may have in a way realized my pattern when it comes to my work. I might create these sudden unnecessary urgencies to get the job done. Perhaps the motivation I speak of is nothing but me building this anxious state of mind for myself to make myself productive. I am the last person to tell you how you can be more productive in a scheduled way cause I am not. Instead, let’s talk about how many times we cause ourselves to get stressed and worried over something that could have been handled in a lighter, more manageable way. Do we do this for any other reason than being lazy or chronic procrastination? Is it related to having been subjected to instant gratification that we are unable to provide the right amount of time to each and every task and the need to feel the compilation of the task instantaneously? Or is it our overachieving subconscious selves trying to trick us into a distressed panic stage? Or maybe the constant bombardment of information and constantly consuming content has distracted us to the point where we need to feel the stress and anxiety to be able to focus? Whatever the reason it feels like we are constantly juggling to be able to feel relaxed or for a better word distracted or hyper-focused to be able to carry out the daily menial tasks. Having our lives lived in more of a highlights format than the slower steadier version of it shows that we are envious of anyone or everyone who has found a sense of stability or belonging. When did those become synonyms for having boring mundane lives? Are we even capable of living in the moment anymore? Or are we just documenting our lives to be able to remember having lived that particular moment? As I write these words I am looking up from the screen of my laptop momentarily, only to realize that I have no recollection of how I arrived at this cafe, having sat at the particular table I chose, the Iced Doppio with a shot of hazelnut that I ordered or the fact that it is rather a lovely sunset, a serene canopy of silhouetted trees moving rather slowing in front of it. A smell of freshly damped soil due to a brisk shower, surrounded by the brightest pink bougainvillea. I find myself fighting the temptation of capturing this particular moment with my phone visually narrating the entire experience of it all. #OfficeForTheDay. Instead, I head back in and look back at the keyboard since it is a task that needs to be completed. Not that I do not enjoy every moment of being able to sit in a corner of a cafe and just write but the sheer fact that I am somehow unable to enjoy or preserve this particular feeling since I am the reason that I feel overwhelmed to finish and deliver it in the given deadline. Maybe for once, I need to slow down and absorb this, drink my coffee a little slowly, take deeper breaths, and look up often. Ohh damn! The sun has already disappeared from the horizon. Well, maybe next time…