Source https://zenhabits.net/rest/
By Leo Babauta
So much of our days are filled with an underlying feeling of difficulty:
- Procrastinating when things seem difficult or overwhelming
- Distracting ourselves and doing small tasks
- Feeling like we’re doing things wrong, and searching for the right answers
- Trying to get things under control when they feel chaotic
- Trying to comfort ourselves when we feel tired or stressed
And so many more examples, I can’t even list them all. Underneath most things we do is a feeling that we should be doing more, that we should be doing things differently, that we don’t want to be doing what we should be doing, that we’re failing in small ways.
It’s stress, worry, anxiety, frustration, dissatisfaction.
But it’s all unnecessary. We can come to rest in the basic, open nature of our lives.
Why We Feel Stress & Anxiety
The thing that we don’t like is that everything feels unstable. Everything feels uncertain, shifting, not solid. Everything feels unsettled. And this is completely true, and it makes us feel nervous, angry, dissatisfied. We don’t like the unsettled nature of life.
We want certainty, control, plans, a system. Order. Unfortunately, we don’t get that, because that’s not how life works.
Life is unsettled, always shifting, like the waters of the w…