Managing Anxiety in Times of Uncertainty
Right now, there is much uncertainty around us. The world is burning, we’re living in a pandemic, the most important election of our modern time is coming up and Ellen might be a secret meanie. How do we manage all of this without going insane? I’m going to share a few truth bombs to help you. I use them to help myself.
I’ll start off with sharing my own pandemic story. If you don’t already know, I grew up in government housing. We would get these food boxes from the government, and it was the cruelest joke. Why? Asians are like 70% lactose intolerant and they’d give us these huge blocks of government cheese. It almost felt like a passive-aggressive attack. Can’t afford food? Here are seven pounds of stuff that will give you the runs and one roll of toilet paper. I would wait for the hunk of cheese to get stale and make art projects out of it. Look ma, I made a paperweight!
When you have that kind of poverty, at least for me I wanted to make sure that I would never ever be that poor again.
On March 13, 2020, I had four streams of income. I run a successful children’s party company. I train and manage people in making bubbles for kid parties. Which is great because I’m bubbly. I also organize petitioners to collect signatures for a variety of causes. I had 40 stand-up comedy gigs booked for the year. I also had a few acting jobs booked; you know, I trained in Shakespeare to sell diet coke via commercials.
I thought to myself, with four streams of income if one were to fail, no problem I have the safety net of three additional ways to generate income.
HA HA HA HA HA HA!!
I didn’t think about the fact that all four ways for me to make money was dependent on face to face interaction. All my comedy shows, canceled. All children’s bubble parties, canceled. TV production, canceled. The proposition petitioning, canceled. Not only was the petitioning gig canceled, they still owe me $5,000. They said, “Sorry, we’re out of business.”
So here I am, no income coming in. Plus, I was seeing a guy from Canada and the borders are closed. Which means no more Mountie to mount me.
On March 13, I promptly went from four fantastic jobs and dating a Canadian to alone without a job isolated in my apartment on March 14.
What to do?
It is now September 21 and there is no end in sight. I don’t know if children’s parties are ever going to make a comeback. I don’t know if comedy shows will ever come back. I don’t know what’s going to happen, and it can be scary.
At some point during the quarantine, I realized there was something that keeps me sane. Here is truth bomb: I have NEVER KNOWN and I WILL NEVER KNOW how things will play out. Sure, I can do things to affect change within my power but a lot of times you just don’t know. This also goes for the “good things” that happen in life.
For instance, these things have happened to me in recent years:
I had a random meeting with a book coach who liked my story and so my book, The Art of Being YAY was written completely by accident.
The bubble job was a random craigslist ad I just answered. I’d been fired from every waiter job ever. Detail to orientation is not my strength and Im bulky and crash into things.
A random recommendation of a show in Norcal two years ago led me to my Publicist/Manager Lisa Pidge.
Meeting Michael. Who finds love on a site called, I can’t say the name but let’s just say it’s like walking into a digital version of a gay Roman bathhouse. There are regular messages like, “Hot, you got a hole pic?”
If I can’t predict good life events and I can’t predict bad life events, like the death of my boyfriend I may as well do things that make sense to me now. Give up on trying to figure everything out, cause ya can’t. Unless you want to call up a psychic but even they’re wrong sometimes. A psychic told my friend she was going to marry a short Greek guy who would sweep her off her feet. She ended with a 6'4" half-Asian guy. God bless her. Those are some beautiful baby making genes. I mean he’s gorgeous and so is she and they eat organic.
My point is, which brought me a hell of a lot of peace was to just accept that I can’t think that I had everything figured out. We just don’t know. I could think I found the love of my life, but then he gets cancer. I could think I am so broke and I will never find a job again; then along comes the perfect job for me. I could think I’m going to quit stand-up, then someone shows up to encourage me to keep going because they see something in me. English is my second language, and I got a C- in English so I’m not great with language, and I end up writing a book.
Let’s accept it. We don’t know. Let’s stop worrying or anticipating. But, we can’t just drop our habit of pretending we can predict what’s ahead without replacing it. What do we replace it with?
The question.
How much control do I have over what I’m worrying about?
If you do not have control over the pandemic, politics, the world on fire, do what you can. Sure donate, support what you believe in, but beyond that let’s be real you can’t control everything and you don’t know how things are going to end up. This all might never end. We don’t know. Accept that you don’t know what you don’t know. Try to figure out where you can take control and affect change there. It is easier to affect change in your immediate surrounding.
Meditate, get happier. Try to work on thinking positive habitualize yourself into empowerment. You might be thinking all these tools won’t help but don’t forget there are people in your life that have to put up with your moods. If you get empowered and happy, you affect those around you in a positive way and you’ll help spread positivity in this time of anxiety and fear. And I get it. Be scared. Be anxious but accept it. There is nothing you can do about it.
You can do things RIGHT NOW like check up on friends and spread positivity. Put fresh food in your kitchen, make something delicious for your family or your neighbor. Turn on some good tunes and have a dance party. These realistically are in your direct control.
Let’s do what we can but let’s stop thinking we can control anything by social media scrolling or continuously watching the news. You can pick up every newsworthy event you need in three minutes flat. That’s all you need and come back tomorrow. Now, you have 23 hours and 57 minutes left in your day to cultivate a life that brings you joy. You possess the time to carry out things and make an impact in a meaningful way for your life.
Allow me to say, the world might blow up tomorrow and you could have spent today cultivating joy or worrying. What are you going to do today?
LINKS:
LEARN ABOUT YOUR EMOTIONAL MOMENTUM TO MIND HACK YOURSELF
RETICULAR ACTIVATING SYSTEM… A PART OF YOUR BRAIN THAT COULD MAKE OR BREAK YOU.
Originally published at https://www.aidanpark.com on September 22, 2020.
Aidan Park is a Los Angeles based bestselling author, comedian, certified life coach, certified NLP master practitioner and public speaker. Visit AidanPark.com to join his weekly FEEL BETTER NEWSLETTER.
