What will happen if I’m not anxious?

This morning I was asking myself a very effective real question. It was during my morning run to drop the kids off at their schools. By this point I have been racing around quite a while, getting everyone ready to go off for the day, and I’m often quite anxious. A lot of it is that I don’t want to get back home a minute later than I have to, because I want to get down to work as soon as possible. 

So what I kept asking myself was some variation on, “What will happen if I’m not anxious?” There were lots of variations: Would it be so bad if I just left out being anxious? What harm will come of it? Will the world end? Do I really have to do this? What actual good is it doing me?

There were lots of opportunities: waiting to make a difficult turn, waiting for the school office to open, going back to the car to get Michael’s “hunter” (plastic safari guide), etc. I didn’t use all the opportunities, but I did use enough of them to get the clear sense that no harm whatsoever would come from me being totally free of anxiety. I could still be alert enough for gaps in the traffic so I could make the difficult turn. I could still do everything just fine. The anxiety, I plainly saw, was totally needless. It actually served no useful purpose, except stressing the hell out of me.

Anyway, I didn’t have any earth-shattering realization. But I did arrive home way more relaxed and stress-free than usual. And I thought it would be good to pass those questions on in case you might get something out of them.