We all know the feeling, whether from walking into a party at a lull in the music, to find it feels as though all eyes are on you. Or perhaps it’s when you stand from your desk to deliver a speech you are not prepared for in front of God and everyone. This can be uncomfortable, scary and even traumatizing to plenty of people. God knows I’ve been there. It can paralyze us in the true “Go moments,” and force us into a pattern of fear, where it feels as though you are the only person for a hundred miles, drowning. But I think that we have forgotten one key truth to being human. Life Is uncomfortable for everyone else too, and we are all just trying to stay afloat.
No one, not you me or the pope himself have anything figured out, and when we think do the world has a way of proving us wrong. And that is scary; I know. But that’s the point. Life is the biggest thing you will ever do, and you are constantly in new, strange territory. Anxiety is the sane rational part of your brain screaming “TOO MANY INPUTS,” and shutting down to cope, but life isn’t sane and rational. Life makes no sense. The fact that you are alive and, (maybe,) reading these words is a miracle, and the fact that you’ve survived this strange hostile planet up unto this point, is a feat. A story will best sum it up.
Two young fish are swimming along, when an older fish swims the opposite direction and says,
“Morning boys, water sure is nice.”
The two young fish paused, and one looked at the other and asked,
“What the hell is water?”
The point is, we forget that we are all united in our solitary awkward, bizarre slog towards death, and as cynical as that may sound, it’s kind’ve beautiful. We’ve forgotten that, and replaced it with a belief that we should be happy all the time, which is simply not realistic or healthy. It’s important to be sad, and unhappy, and uncomfortable, because they are part of the human experience just as much as happiness or love. So the next time the world feels like it is ending when your car keys vanish from their spot on your nightstand, just think; this is water and we’re all just swimming in it.
