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This is a personal comment, but if you're like me, I bet that anxiety is not just related to time. I would be telling myself: How can I commit to a lifelong pr
by l_t 7y ago
This is a personal comment, but if you're like me, I bet that anxiety is not just related to time.
I would be telling myself: How can I commit to a lifelong project like children? How can I decide what career path to choose, when there are so many options and I can only pick one? How can I work out, when its basically signing up to humiliate yourself? How can I take these _risks_?
In my experience, anxiety pretends that it's useful. It feels motivational -- like you are motivated to work out, because of your anxiety about being frail.
But contrary to how it feels, anxiety can have the opposite effect. You want it too much, that becomes dangerous, because you're afraid of trying and failing.
If that sounds familiar at all, my advice (since all HN comments have to have advice, right?) is to distance yourself from those goals and aspirations. Perform the Stoic exercise of meditating on the worst-case scenario. Let yourself make mistakes and look stupid. Just do it because you should, and damn the outcome.
- x2f10 7y ago>You want it too much, that becomes dangerous, because you're afraid of trying and failing. Interesting perspective. I hadn't thought about this, but it rings true at first glance. Thank you for sharing.
- abvdasker 7y agoI am pretty cynical when it comes to the attitudes people seem to have about children (I don't have kids so it's possible I don't know what I'm talking about). You and many others use the same language to talk about attempting to publish a book or starting a company that you use for having children: words like "project". In general I don't agree with this conception of children since failure in that endeavor often has disastrous consequence for a person that wouldn't otherwise exist. It's not merely a personal risk in the sense that somebody else will bear the costs of failure. I tend to think people should generally feel more anxious about the incomprehensibly huge responsibility of making a person, not less.
- l_t 7y agoThanks for calling that out, I'm not trying to imply that these are only personal risks. In fact, it's often the risk to others that causes anxiety. So I wouldn't read too much into my use of the word "project" there. It's just meant to imply something that's a daunting, long-term commitment. (I don't have kids either, for what that's worth.)