I'm in transition, have been for the past four years since my husband died. As I've created this new life for myself, I've had some moments of sadness, along with many moments of joy. With each, I've learned more and more about who I am. I am now on the verge of something totally new. I'm not sure what, but I can feel a change coming and intuitively I know that when I look back in a few years, my life will be much different than it is today. Along with this "gut" feeling has come some anxiousness about the mysterious details of my future. For weeks now I've been trying to alleviate these anxious feelings, but today I decided to ask myself a different question. Is anxiousness so bad? In the true sense of the word, it is not.
In the dictionary it states that "anxious" is an adjective and means being full of mental distress or uneasiness because of fear of danger or misfortune. But it can also mean to be earnestly desirous and eager.
Having this information now helps me assess my reaction to the unknown future. I can be anxious about it with either fear or eagerness. The difference has to do with whether I see my future in a positive light or a negative one. Since I don't have a crystal ball, there's at least a 50% chance I will be right either way. But if I go back and review my life, I realize in all my transitions over the years 80% have had positive outcomes and 20% have had negative outcomes (although in the long run even the negatives have turned positive in some way).
So the lesson I've learned by dissecting my anxiousness is that when I start to feel anxious, I'm going to remind myself that it can be either fear based or eagerness based. But since the odds are in my favor that a positive outcome is on the way, I think I'll place my bet on the positive and be anxious about my future with desire and eagerness.
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