One thing at a time
Tom Denton, Fairview RA
Its midterm season and you just got a paper back. It didn’t go as well as you expected. ‘I need to get better marks’, you think. ‘I just need to spend more time on this class’. Then you remember that you have an assignment due soon. You consider the assignment and don’t understand where to start. Then you think of the quiz you have in a couple days. Where am I going to find time to learn it all? What about your involvement in the club. Your team is counting on you to do your part. Where will you find time for that extracurricular? Your stomach growls. You think of what you are going to eat, and you don’t know what to buy. You want to be healthy but there is no food in the fridge. You decide to go out and get take out instead. Take out is more expensive; I can’t afford to eat this all the time. I’m going to need a good job to afford eating like this you think. You remember the mark you just got back. How am I going to get a good job if I get marks like these in my courses?
You’ve now gone full circle. You’ve been sitting there thinking for half an hour and nothing has changed about your situation for the better. You are just more stressed out and tired than you were in the beginning.
Worry is like a hamster on a wheel, it gives it something to do but it gets you nowhere.
The only way to do things is one at a time. Stop take a deep breathe.
Tasks often seem daunting when you contemplate them. When you look into the future you never know how it will turn out.
“I am an old man and I have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened” – Mark Twain
Planning is important but try not to get carried away. Things change. Just start where you are in the present. Talk to someone if you need to. Take one step at a time and try to be aware only of that step while you are taking it.
It is not easy but it is not meant to be. Take a deep breath. Think you can do it? Don’t think too hard. Just do it.
Links
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-97853/What-worrying-does-health.html