Maybe it's because you're procrastinating on some work, or you have so much work that you're not making any time for your friends. Maybe you've been consistently late to a particular class, have a pile of laundry staring you down, or recently didn't act "yourself" around people who think they know you. Maybe you're just inexplainably depressed and/or moody, that in and of itself forming an anxious guilt within you. Maybe it's all, some, or none of these; there's something guilting you into doubting your choices, that you could be doing better or believing you're making the wrong decisions. Anxieties like this have roots in existentialism-- thinking your purpose is foggy, feeling you aren't doing what would be most effective to achieving what you'd like, and the kicker of convincing yourself that you're wasting time.

There are times I live in this self-guilt tripping mentality; I usually want to find an immediate way out. It's come to my attention that it doesn't quite work that way, at least not for me, as someone with anxiety disorders that don't allow for supposedly quick methods of returning back to "normal". However, I have organized some steps to self-forgiveness. I figure, all of that guilt wants someone to see it and validate it. These steps are mental methods of reaching that forgiveness that've worked for me.

I don't consider this a step-by-step guide, mind you; these are all steps that don't require any specific order, nor are they required. To assume the precise layout of what has worked for me (which is never precise anyway) would work for any other person is returning with an elixir that only kinda helps, and inadvertently placing the fault in the person trying to get better, as if they "did it wrong" or something.

Psychology doesn't work that way, and we're dealing with anxiety here-- to create a to-do list for mental healing is obviously stressful and anxiety-provoking. With that said, I don't think there's any way to do these wrong, including not doing these at all and finding personally better-suited methods. Maybe one really helps and the other two don't help at all; maybe all of them combined help a little. Maybe they can be a foundation for better methods. With this, I’ve found it helps to

1. Avoid comparing yourself to others.

Remind yourself that success and fulfillment are not competitions. Maybe it seems that way with how we have social media often functioning as a means of portraying one's life as successful, but recognize how ego-stroking it is. Be aware of your strengths and better them by your own measurements and own time. Other people can inspire you, but I've found it personally unhealthy to treat them like standards to reach. Seek fulfillment in your own life that you desire, not what you are taught you should desire. That might take a lot of rethinking how you weight the importance of certain goals; you may find a lot of them disappearing, since it's easy to get caught up in the superficiality of things. Maybe you'll have more goals, or maybe they'll stay the same. Just know that your life is the force with the most control over your own satisfaction. With that, do what you please. If your anxiety comes from how long it takes you to do activities that seem to take everyone less than half the time, this next step may be of use.

2. Realize that everyone takes their own time and has their own methods of completing tasks.

I'm talking about everything from getting out of bed in the morning to writing a novel. There's a fantastic article I've revisited many times about breaking tasks down into smaller steps (as well as other methods for living with depression/anxiety), with how that can make overwhelming activities easier to handle. There is no "correct" time for how long everything should take, only the average human standard of completing tasks, plus the stress put on us by the inhuman scheduling we have culturally been forced into calculating our lives in and around. Recognizing the faults in these things may help you see that the amount of time you take isn't that bad after all.

There's a conversation that I think about a lot, but I can never remember who is was between. With that, take my word for it that this loose setup of my non-fiction writing is based on a real conversation between a famous scientist and a famous writer.

The scientist tells his writer friend that he's taking longer than he normally does to finish conducting an experiment. His writer friend asks how long he usually takes and how long he's taking in this project instead. He responds, "I usually take 8 or 9 months, but I'm estimating this project will take anywhere from twelve to fourteen months." The writer chuckles. He tells the scientist, "those times aren't even that far apart. I think you're stressing out over nothing."

The scientist is baffled. He wonders how his friend could see little difference between months. With this, he asks the writer, "How long do you take with your works?"

"Anywhere from a few weeks to ten years."

"Well okay, but that's because your poems take a little less time to realize, and a novel takes much more, yes?"

The writer shook his head with a smile.

"My shortest poem took me eight years and my longest novel took me two months."

"What! That's absolutely insane! How do you prepare for that? How do you schedule yourself around such senseless intervals?"

The writer simply responded, "I don't think about it. There's also the books that I started years and years before I finished them, and I probably only actually was in the writing stages for a few months."

The scientist remained stunned that someone could function so casually and unanxiously without strict organization, while the writer was indifferent.

It isn't a lesson on one being better than the other-- it's just that these are two different methods of working. Not to mention, their occupations are quite different, so it makes sense that they function under different timelines. The scientist may call the writer lazy, while the writer may think the scientist is tightly wound. I personally think it's the same way from person to person-- it's fine to have these differences. Some crafts take longer than others, and some people have different approaches to the same craft. There's no right time nor approach; when I realized this, largely through reading this discussion, it relieved me heavily.

3. There is no "normal" you.

There are very rare, scarce moments where we are in perfect balance with every emotion, every task, every person, every factor of our health, every thing-- and that is absolutely okay. To not have any "normal" way of acting and being yourself is the most honest self you can offer, and that's not only valid, but also insanely human. It’s real. If someone notes that you aren't "yourself" today, it isn't that that person knows what "yourself" is. They merely know how you've most consistently chosen to portray yourself around them. If anything, it's worthy of appraisal that you have moments that seem out of character, since nobody is a character. Too often do we condense each other into the identities and ideas we perceive, the emotions most commonly present, forgetting that every individual is a highly complex being capable of experiencing a full spectrum of emotions just as passionately as we, our own individual selves, experience them personally.

So yes-- I do act "out of character". I have my anxious moments, my hyperactive waves, my moody fluctuations-- just as you do, as well as everybody else. What nobody tells you is that they are never ending. You're always having these moments, because there is no normal way of existing. Everything is always in beautiful fluctuation and it's a matter of riding out each wave with awareness of that, not dismissal of it. To try composing your personality to a rigid one-dimensional plane is inhuman, so don't be discouraged to believe you're doing anything wrong by acting less like the self others predict of you. Recognizing that not you nor anyone else has single leading characteristic helps in seeing the humanness, and therefore the validity, in both yourself and others.

Not that it should help you be less anxious, but recognizing that being anxious is entirely natural may help you see that your anxiety and guilt isn't a result of your personal failing, but rather of your active, caring presence in this universe. Realizing your anxiety is there because you're a person full of emotions leads you to learning that you're a person full of emotions and that is, to me, deeply and beautifully meaningful.

In conclusion, it's far less about acting the correct way, but more-so finding what works for you personally, and adapting to change with healthy awareness of yourself, your environment, your community, your world-- not closing your eyes to it all. It's okay if you don't do the laundry today; it's okay if you've been choosing leisure over work for some time. It's okay to not understand the guilt you carry. Just don't beat yourself up over it, avoid harming anyone else along the way, and recognize that your humanity is something others may find easy to critique, and others may find the beauty in, but at the end of the day is something we collectively experience, full of explorable dualities. Use your power to change and better yourself as you see fit, but also know that your current status is valid. To yourself and your world: be strong, but gentle.