Jeremy C Kester

When I walk outside, I don’t see a jaguar hunched down, ready to pounce. I don’t see a bear wandering around, or a pack of wolves, hungry, ready to make me their meal.

As I go through the day, I don’t have to worry about where my next meal will come from. I don’t have to worry if I am going to be successful on today’s hunt to bring enough food home to feed my family.

I also don’t have to worry where I am going to sleep at night. I have a shelter, heat, A/C, and transportation.

So why the f%$k am I so anxious?

It seems to be this unfortunate aspect of living in modern times that individuals end up with anxiety that appears to do nothing more than inhibit progress. It’s a theme I have been seeing in a lot of what I have been listening to and reading of late.

What dangers do we have in life? Realistically, very few. There’s a few questions I’ve been thinking about because of that:

Are the little things so tragic because the big threats don’t exist? In other words, we now protect our children from being called names as though it was a tiger prowling them on the open plains.

Do we feel so far apart because there is no threat to force us to work against? This is partly a theme in the book “Tribe” by Sebastian Junger. Why is it soldiers have so much trouble reentering our society?

Speaking of “Tribe,” it tells of studies where the instances of psychological disturbances drop significantly during times of upheaval, including wars, natural disasters, and more. And then instances where people miss those days. It really has me wondering if it’s not the anxiety that’s the problem, it’s that my anxiety just doesn’t have a legitimate, worthy cause to force my actions into a more constructive manner? I really do wonder that.