Anxiety as Skepticism?

I've been fighting with anxiety quite a bit lately. Between panic attacks over social outings, avoiding social situations completely and being misunderstood by others around me, it has been quite tough. 

Anxiety was much easier when I was younger and it was understood to be anti-social tendencies.

Anxiety was much easier when I was even younger and was understood to be shyness.

Anxiety was much easier when I recently understood it to be skepticism. 

Problem. I have been thinking more about anxiety and what it really means and how I really experience it. Obviously it is not experienced the exact same by all, but I realized that anxiety is much like skepticism. I think the line that skepticism crosses over to be anxiety is fear. 

Think about it, people with anxiety and/or skepticism question things, overanalyze things in order to uncover what will happen/what is true, think about all possible outcomes of a situation, and find it hard to just accept things. The difference is this fear or worry that people with anxiety get. People who use skepticism don't necessarily feel this. 

I am a skeptic about most things, only because it is hard to be a skeptic about all things all of the time because to even begin to function in modern society you have to accept some most-certain truths just to get by. But when I experience anxiety, it is usually over unnecessary things to even be worried about. The thing is that I think I've always had anxiety, along with my dysthymia (depression), or at least I have had it for a while now. It's just as a kid they called it shyness, as a teenager they told me I was introverted and anti-social. It's just when I got to just this year, just about to hit my 20s that I finally realized and they finally realized that it was anxiety. 

Anyways. I thought this might be interesting.

You can almost see quite literally my double-major in psychology and philosophy in this blog post. Oh god. Does this mean I am actually learning things in school? I didn't know that was possible. 

I'll be back soon enough,

Sarah.

#27 30 Day Writing Challenge- A Quote I try to Live By

I am obsessed with quotes.

Even though quotes are just excerpts of a bigger idea, list, speech, book, etc., reading a bunch of smaller quotes somewhat helps to understand the bigger picture of things.

My blog even has a Quotes Page! It has 3 sections, 1 is things I have written, another is general quotes and the last are quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson.

One of my favourite authors/writers is Ralph Waldo Emerson. He is absolutely amazing. If I believed in reincarnation, I would say I was probably him in a past life. A lot of our ideas and philosophies are really close. Not the same, but close.

Anyways, my favourite quote that I "try to live by" is:

 "Speak what you think now in hard words and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict everything you said today"

 This is from Emerson's essay "Self-Reliance" which is the best essay, ever written.

I plan to get it tattooed on my right forearm, once I am of legal age to get tattoos.

This quote means a lot to me. When I first read it, I feel absolutely in love with it.

I think it is important to feel confident in what you say, and you should also be fine with changing your mind. That's basically what this quote means to me, is that you should say whatever you want, and if you change your mind completely the next day, voice your opinion. It's okay to change your mind. It's okay to say what you want.

I have changed my mind about philosophies, a lot. Recently I have had less interest in anarchy. There was a time when I described myself as an anarchist. Now, not so much. I still think anarchy is really fascinating, but I've sort of stopped.

I feel like you could pull up so many different things I have said from the past, even from blog posts not too long ago, and I have changed my mind about something I have said.

A second quote that I also value a lot, I had the same reaction to. I just felt so good and when I read it, I fell absolutely in love with it, as well. It is by Mark Twain, who I also love.

"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to reform"

This quote can also be known as "Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect" which is a misquote, that was probably created to help define the word "reform". Essentially this quote means that if your idea is the same as everyone else, you should stop and think about why, and make sure you are not conforming to the majority, just because it is the majority.

I think it is fine to go along with the majority, as long as you know why and that is what you believe.

I considered getting this as a tattoo, but I am not 100% sure on it yet. I still love this quote, too. I represents my skeptical and non-conformist self. 

Anyways. I hope you found these quotes as inspiring as I do! 

Do you have any quotes you try to live by?