How to reduce anxiety?
“Anxiety’ is self created!
Therefore, it is possible to overcome this self created ‘anxiety’ by employing basic common sense!
What is this common sense that can control the anxiety?
Stop being an imitator: We are great imitators. Ralph waldo Emerson says, “Envy is ignorance and imitation is suicide”. We envy others when we fail to see our own blessings. We do not envy others for their eyes, ears, and good health like ours. We envy them only when they have objects which we do not possess. Envy is the seed of anxiety. The antidote for envy is to identify our own blessings. Would it be ever possible to buy a living eye from a medical shop? It is one of our greatest blessings. Like that, every cell in the human body is a blessing. Even if you pay one rupee for one cell (it is impossible to get a living cell even if you give the whole macrocosm!), we are 100 trillion rupees rich! When we have such a priceless human body, why are we not grateful for this possession? We are ungrateful due to ignorance. Ignorance is the root cause of anxiety. We are adept at imitating ‘some one else’. Our role models are cine actors; rich, pompous, ostentatious, and gaudy youth. We would like to imitate them by even voluntarily tearing our pants in our effort to be just like them! In imitation, there is the death of individuality. When we imitate others, we are already dead! Love yourself and love your individuality. There is no other individual on earth like you. You are special. Should this feeling develop in you, at that moment, anxiety and the fear of the unknown will run away from you.
Jump off this hamster-wheel: How long do you want to remain attached to this wheel of fixed routine? Right from getting up in the morning, to our choice of breakfast, earning, sleeping, non-compliance of misery, seeking pleasure from objects, and the anxiety of not getting what we desire, ‘we are stuck to this hamster-wheel’. Anxiety is synonymous with this ‘hamster-wheel (a routine that a human being feels that he is born to fulfill)’. Jumping off this ‘hamster-wheel’ is achievement, success, fearlessness, and the purpose of human life. Enjoy being yourself and you have umpteen blessings to be satisfied. Anxiety has no place in such an individual. Anxiety is contracted while attempting to provide security to the physical body which is not even there in reality. Contentment is the other name for a fearless, and desire-less person who lives in the present.
Anxiety is imagining permanence in the impermanent, happiness in the future time, and desire to possess objects and positions which we do not deserve. The exact opposite of it is the purpose of life. It means those who are anxious are not actually living but believe that they are living! Our sheer ignorance makes us anxiety-prone. Ignorance is the unending quest of creating greed and then trying to fulfill it. It serves no permanent purpose in our life. We are like a frog caught by a snake. Its back half is already swallowed, but the front portion of the frog tries to catch a fly. This is how we fail to shun greed even when we are already half swallowed by death! A clock never becomes still, and it should teach us a lesson. We are moving as fast towards death as the second needle is revolving in a time piece. Is it worth suffering for this brief sojourn between birth and death? We should enjoy this moment for we are not sure whether the next moment will come or not. Anxiety arises when we think that we are real, permanent and are going to live in this world for ever and the future is an unquestionable reality. This is one of the most foolish thought processes. A person with some semblance of a basic normal thought process should look forward to enjoy his life. Look at the birds, how they chirp and enjoy their lives. All animals enjoy their lives except the human being. Anxiety is the essential byproduct of human greed. Imagine, we have bought a ticket and have entered Universal Studios; we are supposed to enjoy every moment, otherwise, the money what we have paid is wasted. In the same way, we have to enjoy every moment of this life, otherwise this life is wasted.
Hedonism: Hedonism is the doctrine that pleasure is the highest good. The later Roman kings were notorious for their hedonism. They had built rooms to vomit next to their ball rooms, so that they could keep eating again and again and enjoy life. That is the other extreme. Anxiety is the outcome of this hedonistic belief. If the purpose of our life is to create greed and satisfy it, anxiety has come to stay with humanity. This anxiety is a slow killer. It takes away zest and mirth out of life.
Our body produces pictures of the world like a television producing pictures on its screen. The television is not concerned about the emotion of the story and its job is just to project the image. If we treat this body as a television set that produces this world, then where is anxiety? Let us become something like the electricity is to a television set; a silent witness to the functioning of the body.
May you all be anxiety free and enjoy the fullness of life!
Thank You.