What To Do When the World Seems to be Imploding

Let me clarify when I say "seems" because if the world is literally imploding I am unsure whether or not any of these things will help.

People get stressed out a lot these days. It's unhealthy but there's just no way around it because pressure and fear and all those other contributing factors make a perfect environment for this big guy to hang around and mess up all your stuff no matter how many times you say "down boy!"

You're looking at your calendar, winter break's coming up fast and you haven't done your Christmas shopping (which what money anyways - shoot now I need to get a job too!). And you forgot to call back the newspaper delivery service two weeks ago to see if you could become a paper boy. And there's two presentations coming up that you've barely started. Science you're favourite subject is just overwhelmingly terrifying because you understand most of it but not in the way you want to. And your hopes of a successful musical career are slowly draining as you realize you lack the passion and the skill to make it even a fragment of the way there, and you've got library books due soon, zero volunteer hours and a debate tournament, a concert and a table tennis match all within a day of eachother, if not on the same exact day and you just want to play video games and take a breath and not have to think about anything even if you want to do things and all the stuff you tried to do and failed are coming back all at once and -

Pause.

This right here is exactly what I'm feeling and there's still more and while I could just worry about it and worry about it and worry about I can't. There's simply not enough time. So what will take less time?

Actually doing some of it.

What I've found to help tremendously is to simply make a bulleted list of all these worries and anxieties, a bulleted list of every single darn thing that is unrelentingly bugging you in the back of your mind and once you write down the last item, hide it and don't open it up until a week or month or so afterwards, when you've reached a lull in activity. With all those things written up, you don't have to keep them all locked in your mind anymore. Now you can start building a plan to actually accomplish your tasks. Even if you don't et everything done that you wanted, you can keep going knowing that today was not a "Zero Day", a day where you did absolutely nothing in order to accomplish your goals. Once you got that straight, keep going.

Other things to calm you down:

- Call up a friend and explain to them what you're going through. Sometimes just hearing another voice instead of your own will help.

- Don't think of musical extracurriculars (if you have any) as a burden or a chore or something you are so horrible at that there's no use getting better. If you feel overwhelmed, taking some time to practice is never a waste of time, because if you're worried about this too, it becomes way to accomplish another goal if the one at hand is too daunting as of the present moment

- Listen to this:

...and don't stop it. Put it on loop. You'll feel a bit lighter with every chorus

- Start with tasks that are "menial" and work on bigger ones one chunk at a time

- Pray

- Prevent yourself from thinking negatively about other people - catch yourself in the act because it will only harm you in the long run

- God is there.

Finally, that list you made? Once you reach that lull, once you catch that break, look at it again. Have fun crossing out all the tasks you've completed, and look at all you've accomplished, all things that are done and can't touch you anymore. Because they weren't big monsters at all but shadows of mice.

Have a good one,

- r.k