We have convened on this warm winter morning — all the anxious types, all the careful people, all those who build in a margin of safety and arrive half an hour early, all the calculating citizens who check the bank balance twice a day. We came here today to say to you:
Dear easy-going ones. We have had enough.
All the cool people, everyone whose identity rests on being relaxed, everyone who has hissed condescendingly in our direction — calm down, what are you stressed about? To all of you we say:
We are not impressed by the serenity. In truth, it rather puts us off.
For years we have been tired of carrying you on our backs. Of reminding you that the electricity bill has to be paid so that a disconnection notice does not arrive. Of informing you that there is a quarter of a tank left and it needs filling. Of asking that expenses be calculated in a measured way before another shopping expedition.
And when you take a shot at us and say smugly, what is the stress, you only live once — we have not the strength to explain that precisely because we are given only one life cycle, it might be wise not to spend it in shortage, suffering and mishaps every other day.
And another thing, dear easy-going ones: you owe us an enormous, head-bowed thank you for the fact that we hold the anxiety on your behalf.
Did you genuinely think we had not noticed?
Because that is the actual arrangement, and it is worth naming. In almost every household there is one person carrying the worry for both, and the arrangement is stable precisely because it works — the worrier gets a functioning household, and the relaxed one gets to be the pleasant one to live with.
The cost is invisible and it is paid entirely by one side. And the tell is simple: if one of you has never once lain awake about something practical, that is not a temperament difference. That is a job somebody else is doing.