For as long as I can remember, I’ve struggled with anxiety. There have been times where it has been truly paralyzing; times where I felt helpless as if I had lost all control over my own body. That feeling is the most frustrating thing I’ve ever experienced, so I’ve had to learn to look at my anxiety as a blessing in order to cope with it. I know that sounds crazy, but it truly can be viewed as a blessing just as much as any other struggle can. Here’s why:

Anxiety, fear, and nerves all have the same root—that root being that you care deeply about something. Think about it. If you didn’t care, would you feel any anxiety? You likely wouldn’t, because there wouldn’t be any purpose for it. So I’ve decided it’s time we as a society start looking at anxiety as an indication of passion—nothing more and nothing less. I assure you if you really evaluate why you are anxious about something—there’s always positivity behind it, because caring should never be considered as a negative thing.

For example, say you’re going out with a guy you’ve liked for a while. You’re nervous right? Well, you’re nervous because you want it to go well. You’re nervous because you care for someone and you want them to care for you too. Or maybe you have test anxiety. That anxiety is there because you have a desire to succeed. Perhaps you are fearful of coming back to a place you’ve been away from for a long time, because you want to love it just as much as you once had. All of these nerves, fears, and anxiety stem from nothing more than love, passion, desire, and excitement… how can we look at any of those things as negative?

Without passion, we would be nothing. The only other option is indifference, and who wants that? Who wants to live life simply going through the motions, as opposed to going after what you want? Achieving your heart’s greatest desires is going to take some risk, and risk is going to cause a little fear, but that’s okay. It’s okay because what your heart wants matters, and we wouldn’t be human without those desires.

This world would be dead without passion. It would be cruel without love. It would be boring without excitement. So who are we to sacrifice those things in order to avoid a little bit of anxiety every now and then? When you look at the pros and cons, love will always win. The good far outweighs the bad, and the fear only fuels your fire toward acting on what you’re passionate about. So I don’t know about you, but I think it’s about time we start embracing anxiety—or any other emotion our society has deemed as negative. I assure you, it makes living with nerves feel a lot more bearable, and much more worth it. And maybe, just maybe, if we started looking at struggles like anxiety as blessings, we could wipe the stigma of those emotions so clean we would have no choice but to see fear as a beautiful thing.

Passion is a gift, who are we to see something that stems from that as anything short of a blessing? So let’s start giving thanks for our fears, and keep moving. Never let your nerves hold you back from what put them there in the first place: your capacity to care. Caring won’t ever be a negative thing, unless we continue to allow it to be. Let’s change that.