The current
Situation
Life can feel like you are swimming against the current. Anxiety-inducing situations keep coming your way. You focus, you work harder, and you make a small bit of progress fighting against the rushing current. And then the next day you jump in again and start the work all over. And again you work hard, make a bit of progress, and exhaust yourself.
Background
Life is not the current. Life is the water. It’s neutral. It’s the same no matter which direction it flows, whether it is raging, trickling, or calm. You can take water out, put it in a glass, pour it out somewhere else. It’s still the same water. Just as life is just life. Life doesn’t shape us, we shape it.
Assessment
We are both the swimmer and the current. The swimmer—our conscious mind—focuses on tasks and goals. The current—our subconscious—guides our attention, mood, and energy. When our subconscious is misaligned with our intentions, we fight against ourselves. The water of life turns into challenges, anxiety-inducing situations, and work. When we train our subconscious to align with our intentions, we change the direction of the current. Our energy is focused on the things that matter and lets the rest float by. Life returns to being neutral water. Instead of fighting against the current every day, it flows in the same direction we are swimming. The day-to-day is no longer a fight. You are no longer exhausted by life because you are no longer exhausting yourself. And you get to swim toward your goals while also being carried along by the current.
Recommendation
Evaluate the things that are hard in your life. Ask yourself why they are hard. Is the thing itself genuinely hard or is it hard because of the pressure and expectations you have attached to it? If it is genuinely hard, the anxiety you are feeling is simply the discomfort of doing challenging work and should internalized as effort well expended. If it is only hard because of your perception of the thing, you need to first question why you are putting so much unnecessary pressure on the thing and question why you believe you are not qualified to swiftly complete the things. Often you will find that these expectations are based on false assumptions of yourself or the situation. Once you demystify the your false assumptions, you can then tackle the thing with the effort it warrants.
In addition, you also have to question why you are even doing the thing. We do a lot of things just because they are on some real or theoretical todo list. Question how valuable this thing is that is causing your stress and then proceed to approach it with the effort that it warrants, reserving your energy for things that drive the most value.
