I have been home for three weeks now with very few obligations and more free time than I've had in years. My job is low key, fun, and absolutely rewarding, my family has been getting along, and my friends and I have had a blast reminiscing and recreating the fun we had last summer. In short, these first three weeks of summer have been exactly how I pictured them--enjoyable, productive, and carefree--yet I still find things to stress about.
I still lay in bed every night planning out the next day hour by hour. I replay conversations in my head making sure I didn't say something wrong. I wake up in the middle of the night worrying that I won't get to work on time. I obsess over regretting the cupcakes I ate three nights ago. I thought that the absence of homework, tests, meetings, article deadlines, and rehearsals would ease my anxiety, but it didn't and I'm learning that stuff isn't the culprit of my stress level....I am.
I've been reading Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis: a philosophical series of letters from one demon advising another demon in corrupting and destructing a human. One of the letters is about time and humans' obsession with it. We are physically living in the present, yet constantly thinking, dreaming, and wondering about the past and the future. We have no power to change the past and no instrument to see into the future and yet most of the time our brains live in one of these impossibilities. The demon explains that the present is the most dangerous place for a human to live in, because God's presence is most tangible in the present.
This is soooooooo genius! Everything I stress about has to do with the either the past or the future. When I intentionally focus my mind on the present and everything the present has to offer, there is no longer anything to fear or worry about; there is only God and me and endless possibilities of what we can do together. That alone is exciting, harmonious, and completely stress-free. :)
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