Be Anxious. Be Fabulous. Carry On.

Hmmm.

Is your mind racing?

Because mine is.

The world’s ending — again — if you believe the news.

Craig and Paige broke up.

My tires are bald.

My recliner doesn’t recline — even my furniture has turned on me

Tariffs are climbing, beer's eighteen bucks, wine’s a luxury now.

Honestly, that’s enough to make anyone throw a blanket over their head and call it a day.

I've been thinking—and overthinking—about anxiety.

Specifically, how to live with it without letting it run the whole show.

We're supposed to pivot, disrupt, master AI by Tuesday, and reinvent ourselves by Friday.

And just when we almost catch up, the world updates again.

Maybe anxiety isn’t a crisis anymore.

Maybe it’s just the new national dance craze:

1-2-3 Pivot. 1-2 Pivot. 1-2-3 Racing Thoughts.

"How Many Angels Can Dance on the Head of a Pin?" The riddle often asked in corporate training.

The real question isn’t how many angels can dance — it’s why are they dancing? Another pointless exercise to keep pretentious coaches in business.

Another useless test dressed up as wisdom.

It’s dumb. Don’t worry about it.

Meanwhile, there's always that coworker—the Tattler—peeking over the cubicle wall, whispering shame like a bad Handmaid’s Tale reboot:

"You're falling behind."You're not enough."Everyone sees you struggling."

For a long time,

I listened. Now? I look that voice square in the metaphorical eye and whisper back:

"Shame on YOU."

And I keep typing.

Anxiety Isn’t a Glitch — It’s Wiring

According to psychology (and honestly, every family reunion I've ever survived) , anxiety is a future-oriented response to diffuse threats, not an instant fear response like spotting a snake in your driveway.

Stress, anxiety, fear—tangled cousins from the same messy, stubborn family tree.

Daily, low-grade worry doesn't mean you're broken. It just means you're alive, awake, noticing.

Not everything needs diagnosing. Sometimes anxiety is just... part of being a human being in 2025.

I think about my aunt—the "Worrier of the Family." No fancy terms. No crisis labels.

She simply was the one you gave your problems to—and she carried them with grace.She lived to 92.

Maybe that’s the secret: In a world pushing us further into isolation, maybe anxiety—messy, persistent, shared—is still one of the things that ties us together.

Keep Your Pleasures Alive

Of course, the modern advice is to eliminate stress.Right.I'll add that to the To-Do list:

• Finish laundry

• Save for retirement

• Eliminate existential dread

  
  

If removing stress were possible, I'd be sipping umbrella drinks on a beach in Bora Bora with zero emails.But it's not.

And somehow, failing to "eliminate stress" becomes yet another thing we’re failing at.

Another invisible pop quiz we didn’t even know we were taking.

So forget spotless coping.

Forget winning at wellness.

Here's what actually helps:

Keep your pleasures alive.

When life spirals, the first thing people cut is joy.

But cutting yourself off from laughter, music, terrible sitcoms, half-read novels?

That’s not strength. That’s emotional starvation.

Sing badly in traffic.

Laugh at dumb jokes.

Read a chapter you'll probably forget.

Dance terribly in the kitchen.

Burn toast like a champion.

Small joys are survival, not indulgence. They are a rebellion in miniature.

Final Thought

Anxiety isn’t going anywhere. But neither are you.

Maybe we don’t "Stay Calm and Carry On" anymore

Maybe that was never real to begin with.

Maybe we Be Anxious. Be Fabulous. Carry On.

(Blanket optional. Singing strongly encouraged.)