Tortured Perfection

I have often admired how some people can simply shrug off things that devastate me with anxiety. Anxiety is a strange beast, though. I've come to think that I may have a certain level of anxiety within me, and that I just try to find various excuses to experience it. I worry about one thing until it has passed, then find something new to worry about. I suspect other people do this too, but I don't know if everyone does this, and for those that do, I don't know if we do it all of the time.

I know that my anxiety reduces significantly on vacations, and I wonder why that is. The easy explanation is that I make a conscious choice to relax because I'm on vacation. Well, if it's that simple, why don't I just make a conscious decision to just relax, all the time? Can I make such a decision? Will it work? I probably ought to try at some point, but I don't really have to "try" when I'm on vacation, so why should I have to "try" otherwise?

I recognize that there have been periods of time in my life with very little stress and anxiety-- sometimes these periods have lasted for several months. I'm not really sure how I created these time periods, but I'm glad that they happened. Perhaps though, these time periods never really happened at all. Perhaps these are just time periods during which I have forgotten my anxieties. If that's true, maybe all I really need to do is learn how to forget my anxiety.

An interesting paradox occurs on the way to perfection, that I suspect demonstrates the idea that there is always a certain amount of anxiety. Well, first of all, I never reach perfection, but I seek it in certain areas. One such area is management of stress and anxiety. The closer I get to acheeving perfection the more anxiety I develop about maintaining my progress. As I stray further from perfection, I develop more anxiety about my failure to achieve perfection. The cycle doesn't really reach a long term steady state, but instead shifts from one side to the other like a boat rocking on the waves.

I often wonder if I would have less stress if I had less material things. I don't know the answer to that now, but I'm going to find out. It's all part of a plan. The 8 year plan.