Let us put it this way: anxiety is an outstanding salesman.
Apart from depression, psychology knows no better salesman than Mr Anxiety.
Why?
Because your anxiety is occupied day and night with one thing: convincing you that this world is a dangerous place.
The tragedy of this century is that it usually succeeds.
And this is how it does it.
Your anxiety will direct your attention to all the things that could go wrong and break down.
And you will live in this world carefully, carefully. You will give up relationships, and experiences, and the possibility of advancing. You will give up everything, in order to obtain one value only.
Security.
And you will make the classic mistake that so many have made before you. You will think that the best way to obtain security is to cling to the familiar, to do only the things you already know.
There is an ocean of possibilities for a better life, for a more thrilling existence, that we are not prepared to consider even with tweezers.
People think all the possibilities of the universe are open to them. They have been sold the idea that everything is available. But in practice they settle for very little.
They settle for uploading pictures and videos from a small rectangular device, and are convinced they are devouring life.
Life is so much more than the glass cage of the smartphone.
But this is my sad conclusion after many wrinkles of experience. People do not genuinely want to be happy. They want exemption from worry.
Just dare to hint to them that it would be worth changing the existing order in order to save the relationship, the career, the psyche — and instantly they respond with anxiety.
And when people are anxious, do not talk to them about complexity. Do not talk to them about the pleasure that comes from investigating something unknown.
Give them the usual sandwich and the familiar route from home to work and back.
The cost is not paid in a single dramatic moment. It is paid in the slow narrowing of what you are willing to find out about yourself.