Given your life experiences--and accomplishments, like wealth accumulation--so far, what would happen if you did *not* have this anxiety? If it were possible to just totally drop it, and you did so, what would actually happen?
We must be on a similar wavelength as I recently wrote a column about “waiting for the next shoe to drop” - ie worrying. Since you asked, my greatest worry right now is my 32 year old daughter who is at that phase of life where many of her friends are marrying and having babies. Although she is smart, beautiful, a great catch, etc.. she hasn’t yet found “Mr. Right” and feels her life is not moving forward. As a mother, how do I help? She seems so unhappy and worries about being alone. Unfortunately, matchmaking is not an option. Worry about our children never ends.
Yes, that worry never ends. Meeting the "right" person is so random and so luck dependent.
Your daughter may want to check out Cartoons Hate Her, a Substack newsletter I really enjoy. I just saw they are doing some match making for all ages and need more single women
Wow, I am so glad I'm not rich or even middle class right now. I'd like to be solidly middle class again, but having spent lots of years barely getting by, I just don't worry about stuff like this. I talk to my friends from Yale who have high powered jobs and make tons of money, and they are almost all miserable. Exhausted, pressured, can't speak out in support of Israel for fear of professional consequences... while I write happily in my little one bedroom apartment, can substitute teach if I have to because I can actually handle the urban poor,. i'm about to drive my 2004 Subaru to meet my 80 year old mother for lunch at the Olive Garden. My car's air conditioner doesn't work anymore but I don't care! The car goes and is safe. I'd love to be middle class again, as I was for the first twenty or so years of my career, but I'd want to keep all that I've learned from being poor. Dollar store moisturizer and shower gel are fine, anything else is a waste of money. Buy generics. Think about what you need and deal with the wants later. Love is more important than money. I know so many rich people in dead marriages who can't leave because they fear an expensive divorce or they are economically dependent on their spouse. Men more than women actually. At least I know that if a man is spending time with me, it's because he wants to, not because he needs my money! Health, family, spending time in prayer and meditation, spending time with my cat... so much better than all this. I hope you've reached a point where you're not worried about status anymore. You're a great writer with a wonderful family, and a good example to others. What could be better than that?
I love this reply. You obviously have your priorities straight and know what true happiness means. As someone who came into a lot of money a few years ago, I can attest to the fact, that while it makes life much more convenient and lessens financial worries, it also increases anxiety in some ways. I’m glad I wasn’t raised in the lap of luxury as I believe most of my best qualities came from learning how to manage challenges, including some financial stress. Thanks for what you do to teach others. Teachers are our best resource for our future generation.
Your terrific comment about your priorities makes me want to ask you for advice for people who are on the "treadmill" of wanting. Do you think that recognizing it would help? Do you think your career has helped you with perspective?
Hi David! Thank you for asking! I found out a lot of things a hard way that I would not wish on anyone else. In my late thirties I had a severely traumatic incident that derailed a six figure (low six figure but still) career. However, I was able to finish my Masters in Public Health, which was what I really wanted, and to work in a lot of jobs that might have seemed "not good enough" if I was still on the Yale to success treadmill, but that were what was accessible to me. Losing most everything, including my entire 401(k) and the physical ability to work for periods of time made me realize that just being able to make a living, being physically and mentally able to be present for family and friends, is enough. I would never have been able to teach in the urban public schools if I had not been through the experiences that knocked the Yale supergirl out of me.
I was also able to use my experience to help others through harm reduction for people who use substances. That work more than any other made me realize that everyone is struggling somehow, whether they are rich, poor, or in between. Some of the people I worked with in harm reduction for people with alcohol problems were very well off financially, and prisoners of their families in ways that kept them unable to live the life they wanted. So they drank the pain away instead of walking away from the family money. I feel more fortunate than that.
When October 7 happened, many of my Yale and other well off friends wrote me privately thanking me for my writing, and saying that I say what they can not say. They have families to support, institutions they have given their adult lives to, and property to pay for. I have very little, and that means there's not much anyone can take away from me. The ability to write freely means a tremendous amount to me.
Now I do not want to glamorize poverty. It is terrifying to not know how you're going to pay the rent. There's nothing fun or liberating about not being able to afford necessary medical care (I'm on Medicaid now and better off than when I was on terrible insurance at a liberal non-profit and a routine doctor's visit cost $80!). That kind of fear saps all my creativity, passion, at eventually eats away at the will to live. But having been through that, now that I am on more solid ground, I can truly appreciate the things that matter. Having the time to have a deep conversation with a new friend. Spending a long lunch at the Olive Garden, a place many of my rich friends would never visit, chatting with my mom and leaving a really good tip for the waitress, who needs and will appreciate the money. We spent $32 on a giant lunch and left a $13 tip. Just being able to do that is a tremendous luxury for us, and we savor it more, I think, than a lot of people savor their $300 dinners.
I wouldn't wish ill health or misfortune on anyone, but I would say that spending time with the less fortunate economically is a good thing to do. Substitute teaching is a great way to lose your privilege for a day. The kids don't care who you are and will treat you terribly, especially if you are female. It puts things in perspective. Encountering the poor in contexts where you are not above them, giving charity, is a way to step outside the bubble of wealth. I would advise all well off people to make sure their children have experience where they do real service and encounter the poor. I'd also encourage them to make life a little harder for their kids. Make them earn their allowance and cars and phones. Teach the value of work. That way the kids will already know how to work if they have to.
A few years ago I woke up in the hospital after eight days on a ventilator (due to a horrible medical error) to find that my landlords were kicking me out of my apartment, I had no voice due to the ventilator so I could not return to my teaching job, and I had nowhere to go and less than $300 in the bank. All I wanted was to be safe with my cat. Having been to that place and built back up, I fear a lot less. I don't recommend it, but it taught me that I can survive on very little and that having a place to live, food to eat, and a happy cat can be enough.
I'm going to interject a slight niggle here,begging your pardon. Yes living simply is a lot less daunting than it's painted up to be,is that to keep people on the Hamster Wheel out of fear. But the idea that NOT HAVING MONEY is the key or guarantee of love and happiness due to it being the exact opposite being RICH thus,of course,being a horrible person who no one loves. It's not such a direct correlation,is that the right word. It's not like RICH but hated,POOR but loved. There are lovely rich people and lovely poor people and there are mean spirited exploitative rich people and poor people. One thing I've learned is that "the poor" are not some mass identical block of people but all individuals with different ideas on life. I rather share Nietschzes rejection of the idea that it's better to be loved than have money as it has dangers.
Thank you! I definitely do no mean to imply that being poor makes one happy or better. Being poor is miserable. I hate staying up half the night trying to make the numbers work is horrible. Really horrible. Not having money for groceries or health care is awful. And having actually lived around and taught poor people - I by no means wish to imply they are good. They are often incredibly mean and nasty. Poverty breeds violence and incivility. I’d like to live in a middle class suburb again. I’m tired of trash everywhere on the sidewalks and screaming people on transit. I do think that having been poor has given me more empathy and resilience. But I’m looking forward to improved circumstances.
Thank YOU for comprehending my angle. I'm glad you 'got' what I was saying. It's sad that a lot of 'poor people' don't want to make their surroundings nicer even by planting a few herbs. I'm sorry you're in a not nice area right now. I hope you'll have a stroke of luck to add to your diligent finance care. I just don't like when being poor is cast as the exact opposite to being rich as in poor but loved,rich but sad
The wise elder, anti-nuclear activist, and translator of Rilke’s poetry, Joanna Macy, tells of when she went to Dharamsala not long after the Dalai Lama and his followers trekked over the mountains from Tibet to live in exile. She was struck by how content, even happy, people were. They had lost everything, and found the ground of their being. Without romanticizing poverty, I think of a spectrum between the material and the spiritual. It’s certainly possible to balance comfort and spiritual groundedness, but having wealth can also be a distraction. We get swept up in wanting more when all the wealth we’ll ever need is inside.
Thanks Julie. I think the inner peace you describe is possible but grows harder the more people you feel depend upon you. I have never been a good meditator and I wish I had a better spiritual practice.
Find a teacher. Ideally in a system/faith you are already comfortable/experienced with. Someone who can challenge you to excel, and ensure your practice allows you to progress at an optimal rate.
Then put in the time, applying as many hours/week as sustainable. Ideally comfortably sustainable.
If you wish you had a better spiritual practice, then why don't you just practice? Not to sound snotty or judgmental, but when you want something like that, there is nothing but your own mind preventing you from achieving it. It's a practice, not a perfect.
Just like any other discipline, such as investing money, working out, drinking enough water, it only takes your own commitment to what you say you want.
You don't need to sit in lotus pose with your eyes closed for an hour every day, trying to empty your busy mind.
A spiritual practice requires only your own mindfulness. Perhaps as you walk Sophie in the park, you can practice noticing. Thic Nhat Hanh offers a beautiful walking meditation.
I know it's challenging when people depend on you. The truth is, if you dropped dead right now, they would figure their own lives out. Don't forget the truth, so eloquently sung by Beyoncé, "Don't ever for a second get to thinking your irreplaceable."
Your writing sometimes seems inspired. Perhaps, that is practice enough.
When all of my friends from prep school got law degrees or MBA's and then developed often extremely lucrative careers, I went to Asia seeking enlightenment, which eventually led to Thailand, and becoming a Buddhist forest monk for four years.
When I washed out, Oriental Medicine became my new vocation. With an emphasis on inner process, on seeking/finding the mystical. Fast forward to the aughts when I put out my own shingle...but like literally every ex-monk I knew or knew of, was not terribly good at business, at marketing, at practice management. The Great Recession was a wipeout, wherein I lost my practice, and all my capital, and was homeless for a while, living in a tent in the woods of Marin, doing $180/hr phone consults with technocrats hungry for happiness and inner peace.
Being Happy is just a skill. Like pretty much any other skill. Some talent + decent teacher(s) + practicing = progress. Seriously, it's that simple. As such, it is also a commodity, subject to the law of supply and demand. But it is taught in Buddhism that in the space between happiness and unhappiness, success and failure, pain and pleasure, winning and losing...there lies another way, another path. Which is supposedly the final mountain to climb.
David, you're handsome. (Get your beautiful wife out to see this, NOT flirting). In fact, watching you on a recent interview I thought you look like a 35 year old good looking actor who went into makeup and instructed them to make you look 60ish, and the makeup person failed but still added some grey and a couple of fake age lines around your eyes. My financial worries mirror yours even though I am middle class. As I head to a No Kings protest, I am very anxious about living in an autocracy. Be well all.
David, you got me this morning… never have I considered asking ChatGPT about my age or appearance! Just tried it and its guess was 10 years off (10 years too young). Now I’ll spend all day reminding myself that it’s a bot and that I should NOT succumb to its “flattery” (just as I did when I fed it a draft recently of a Substack post). Has anyone else tried this?? Tx also for in-depth explanation of mimetic desire.
I’m most worried about the seeming failure of our system of government. If I dwell on it, that leads me to worry about the devaluation of the dollar, and what that could mean for my retirement savings.
I’m getting ready to embark on a coast to coast road trip. I’m anxious somebody is going to see my CA plates and mistake me for one of the progressive nit-wits that created a tire fire inside a dumpster that is CA these days. Actually it’s really not causing me much anxiety, because conservatives that dwell in flyover country typically are rational and respect other people’s property. I’d be more at risk if I drove a truck with ID plates and a MAGA sticker through SF.
Hi Jrod. Your comment reminds me of a wonderful scene in Curb Your Enthusiasm where Larry realizes that he can effectively cancel a lunch date in Beverly Hills he's been dreading by wearing his MAGA cap.
I don’t have much anxiety in my life right now. However, I’m approaching retirement in 2-3 years and I’m concerned that I won’t have enough money saved to cover medical expenses and other unanticipated expenses. I continue working in a relatively high stress, fairly dysfunctional corporate sales management job because it pays well and I can save a significant portion of my salary in tax-deferred accounts. The uncertainty of the economy contributes to my concerns.
I'm anxious about my aunt, who lies in bed, recently widowed, too weak to walk and unable to attend to their 40 acre property, off-grid, in the middle of the Arizona desert. I can care for her, but her will to leave (I meant to write live, but I think leave is also correct) is entirely in her hands.
I'm anxious about my own uncertain future as a late 50-something with no real capital to fall back on when things blow up. Global tumult might make it all irrelevant.
In spite of these and so many more anxieties that keep me awake at night, trying to figure it all out, I find peace in the moment.
For me, bigger than my anxiety, is my desire to see peace instead of this. I can look outside myself, all around at terrible and atrocious things.
And.
There is beauty. Even in the baking heat of the desert, I see the beauty of this magnificent planet we inhabit. I feel the beauty of other humans, who are also desperately fearful and anxious, but who still take time to smile and offer small kindnesses.
I see the richness of humanity, unfurling as delicate beautiful ribbons of love, hope and opportunity.
As long as we hold onto love and kindness, there is truly nothing to fear.
If I outlive my money, I could live in my son’s spare room. Writing doesn’t require much space. Outliving my hope for the world is a greater challenge. I cultivate resilience by contemplating and honoring beauty everywhere I find it, from friendship to the natural world. I find much to celebrate. Today the news is a poke through my heart. By the way, David, I want to shake that kid who called you ugly. You are shining the light of inquiry and compassion on issues that too often go ignored. That’s beautiful.
You’ve nailed the generalized anxiety many of us are feeling, David, and I agree that we have to push back on the doomscrolling. But the thing that makes me most anxious right now? The business interests benefiting from AI and their lack of transparency. The technology could be transformative, but its development and incredible resource drain is in the hands of a few tech billionaires - so, yeah, I’m scared about that, and I think my fears are well-founded.
AI is scary because we don't know where it will lead and, as you point put, what powers it will confer or take away.
I think AI will be transformative but I think there is so much capital going in to it that it seems, financially, like a bubble. Like the railroad boom in the 19th century where railroads were overbuilt.
I use ChatGPT as my search engine now because it's better than Google. I always ask for and check sources. It's very useful for research.
AI can be helpful for all sorts of things, including research. What worries me is how we teach young developing minds to use it. Journalism as a profession tends to focus on the bad, because it is a natural hook, but there is also a lot to be said for pointing out potential consequences. While humans may be hard-wired to focus on threats, there is also the kneejerk tendency to avoid looking hard at overwhelming disasters. I see that all around me now with helpless shrugs about climate change and the impact of generative AI (already) on critical-thinking skills.
Your piece did make me realize that wealthy tech execs like Sam Altman might be beset by their own version of status anxiety. Trouble is, his anxiety about keeping up affects us all.
True: A'I' is not all grim. There is, for example, a wonderful BBC example of 're-seeding' coral reefs using A'I'. (Leaving aside the cause-and-effect analysis, and the outrageous monopolisation of water resources - worldwide - and the slave wage practices of many third world data centres, just for a moment.)
However, when you combine it (as successive US Congresses have done, by commission or omission - who cares) with Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, it is open season for 'monetising hatred' (and young / children's self-hatred / suicide) - in the IRL world, in which that Act lives. It's high time the American public, and parents of young children in particular, woke up (a deliberate use of the term 'woke') to that fact.
Much as it's tempting to blame 'social media' for 'that' Act, they never passed it - they do not sit in Congress (appearances to the contrary) and majorities of both ruling parties have had more than enough time (9 years and counting) to rescind it. What's keeping you from cleaning up your own back yard, guys?
I’m a few days late to this thread, but your eighth-grade story hit me right in the solar plexus. It’s astonishing how one cruel comment can echo for decades—and how quickly we internalize bad self-definitions as truth.
Right now, I’m most anxious about holding together the fragile, ferocious thing we’ve built—a press that feels like a legacy for our daughters. And simultaneously fielding texts from my father threatening to call the police if I don’t respond quickly enough... I'm like, but I'm in a meeting. Remember meetings, pop? So yes: I worry about unnecessary drama. But I also marvel at how ancestral anxiety can be channeled into creation.
Thank you for this post—it made me feel a little more human today.
I'll answer my own question. I''m anxious thatI'm not doing everything I'm supposed to be doing for my family.
Question:
Given your life experiences--and accomplishments, like wealth accumulation--so far, what would happen if you did *not* have this anxiety? If it were possible to just totally drop it, and you did so, what would actually happen?
That would be great. But it's really hard to make yourself non-anxious.
Systematic De-Sensitization is an example of a (modern) clinical psyche technique to empower individuals to reset perceptual/behavioral filters.
Find a professional with skill, then put in some time. Given your existing skill set and myriad accomplishments, it's a shoe-in.
We must be on a similar wavelength as I recently wrote a column about “waiting for the next shoe to drop” - ie worrying. Since you asked, my greatest worry right now is my 32 year old daughter who is at that phase of life where many of her friends are marrying and having babies. Although she is smart, beautiful, a great catch, etc.. she hasn’t yet found “Mr. Right” and feels her life is not moving forward. As a mother, how do I help? She seems so unhappy and worries about being alone. Unfortunately, matchmaking is not an option. Worry about our children never ends.
Yes, that worry never ends. Meeting the "right" person is so random and so luck dependent.
Your daughter may want to check out Cartoons Hate Her, a Substack newsletter I really enjoy. I just saw they are doing some match making for all ages and need more single women
She’s dating someone now, but it’s fairly new… but will pass that along. She probably would love that I’m writing about it… lol.
Wow, I am so glad I'm not rich or even middle class right now. I'd like to be solidly middle class again, but having spent lots of years barely getting by, I just don't worry about stuff like this. I talk to my friends from Yale who have high powered jobs and make tons of money, and they are almost all miserable. Exhausted, pressured, can't speak out in support of Israel for fear of professional consequences... while I write happily in my little one bedroom apartment, can substitute teach if I have to because I can actually handle the urban poor,. i'm about to drive my 2004 Subaru to meet my 80 year old mother for lunch at the Olive Garden. My car's air conditioner doesn't work anymore but I don't care! The car goes and is safe. I'd love to be middle class again, as I was for the first twenty or so years of my career, but I'd want to keep all that I've learned from being poor. Dollar store moisturizer and shower gel are fine, anything else is a waste of money. Buy generics. Think about what you need and deal with the wants later. Love is more important than money. I know so many rich people in dead marriages who can't leave because they fear an expensive divorce or they are economically dependent on their spouse. Men more than women actually. At least I know that if a man is spending time with me, it's because he wants to, not because he needs my money! Health, family, spending time in prayer and meditation, spending time with my cat... so much better than all this. I hope you've reached a point where you're not worried about status anymore. You're a great writer with a wonderful family, and a good example to others. What could be better than that?
I love this reply. You obviously have your priorities straight and know what true happiness means. As someone who came into a lot of money a few years ago, I can attest to the fact, that while it makes life much more convenient and lessens financial worries, it also increases anxiety in some ways. I’m glad I wasn’t raised in the lap of luxury as I believe most of my best qualities came from learning how to manage challenges, including some financial stress. Thanks for what you do to teach others. Teachers are our best resource for our future generation.
April,
Your terrific comment about your priorities makes me want to ask you for advice for people who are on the "treadmill" of wanting. Do you think that recognizing it would help? Do you think your career has helped you with perspective?
Hi David! Thank you for asking! I found out a lot of things a hard way that I would not wish on anyone else. In my late thirties I had a severely traumatic incident that derailed a six figure (low six figure but still) career. However, I was able to finish my Masters in Public Health, which was what I really wanted, and to work in a lot of jobs that might have seemed "not good enough" if I was still on the Yale to success treadmill, but that were what was accessible to me. Losing most everything, including my entire 401(k) and the physical ability to work for periods of time made me realize that just being able to make a living, being physically and mentally able to be present for family and friends, is enough. I would never have been able to teach in the urban public schools if I had not been through the experiences that knocked the Yale supergirl out of me.
I was also able to use my experience to help others through harm reduction for people who use substances. That work more than any other made me realize that everyone is struggling somehow, whether they are rich, poor, or in between. Some of the people I worked with in harm reduction for people with alcohol problems were very well off financially, and prisoners of their families in ways that kept them unable to live the life they wanted. So they drank the pain away instead of walking away from the family money. I feel more fortunate than that.
When October 7 happened, many of my Yale and other well off friends wrote me privately thanking me for my writing, and saying that I say what they can not say. They have families to support, institutions they have given their adult lives to, and property to pay for. I have very little, and that means there's not much anyone can take away from me. The ability to write freely means a tremendous amount to me.
Now I do not want to glamorize poverty. It is terrifying to not know how you're going to pay the rent. There's nothing fun or liberating about not being able to afford necessary medical care (I'm on Medicaid now and better off than when I was on terrible insurance at a liberal non-profit and a routine doctor's visit cost $80!). That kind of fear saps all my creativity, passion, at eventually eats away at the will to live. But having been through that, now that I am on more solid ground, I can truly appreciate the things that matter. Having the time to have a deep conversation with a new friend. Spending a long lunch at the Olive Garden, a place many of my rich friends would never visit, chatting with my mom and leaving a really good tip for the waitress, who needs and will appreciate the money. We spent $32 on a giant lunch and left a $13 tip. Just being able to do that is a tremendous luxury for us, and we savor it more, I think, than a lot of people savor their $300 dinners.
I wouldn't wish ill health or misfortune on anyone, but I would say that spending time with the less fortunate economically is a good thing to do. Substitute teaching is a great way to lose your privilege for a day. The kids don't care who you are and will treat you terribly, especially if you are female. It puts things in perspective. Encountering the poor in contexts where you are not above them, giving charity, is a way to step outside the bubble of wealth. I would advise all well off people to make sure their children have experience where they do real service and encounter the poor. I'd also encourage them to make life a little harder for their kids. Make them earn their allowance and cars and phones. Teach the value of work. That way the kids will already know how to work if they have to.
A few years ago I woke up in the hospital after eight days on a ventilator (due to a horrible medical error) to find that my landlords were kicking me out of my apartment, I had no voice due to the ventilator so I could not return to my teaching job, and I had nowhere to go and less than $300 in the bank. All I wanted was to be safe with my cat. Having been to that place and built back up, I fear a lot less. I don't recommend it, but it taught me that I can survive on very little and that having a place to live, food to eat, and a happy cat can be enough.
I'm going to interject a slight niggle here,begging your pardon. Yes living simply is a lot less daunting than it's painted up to be,is that to keep people on the Hamster Wheel out of fear. But the idea that NOT HAVING MONEY is the key or guarantee of love and happiness due to it being the exact opposite being RICH thus,of course,being a horrible person who no one loves. It's not such a direct correlation,is that the right word. It's not like RICH but hated,POOR but loved. There are lovely rich people and lovely poor people and there are mean spirited exploitative rich people and poor people. One thing I've learned is that "the poor" are not some mass identical block of people but all individuals with different ideas on life. I rather share Nietschzes rejection of the idea that it's better to be loved than have money as it has dangers.
Thank you! I definitely do no mean to imply that being poor makes one happy or better. Being poor is miserable. I hate staying up half the night trying to make the numbers work is horrible. Really horrible. Not having money for groceries or health care is awful. And having actually lived around and taught poor people - I by no means wish to imply they are good. They are often incredibly mean and nasty. Poverty breeds violence and incivility. I’d like to live in a middle class suburb again. I’m tired of trash everywhere on the sidewalks and screaming people on transit. I do think that having been poor has given me more empathy and resilience. But I’m looking forward to improved circumstances.
Thank YOU for comprehending my angle. I'm glad you 'got' what I was saying. It's sad that a lot of 'poor people' don't want to make their surroundings nicer even by planting a few herbs. I'm sorry you're in a not nice area right now. I hope you'll have a stroke of luck to add to your diligent finance care. I just don't like when being poor is cast as the exact opposite to being rich as in poor but loved,rich but sad
Sad in comfort eh!
The wise elder, anti-nuclear activist, and translator of Rilke’s poetry, Joanna Macy, tells of when she went to Dharamsala not long after the Dalai Lama and his followers trekked over the mountains from Tibet to live in exile. She was struck by how content, even happy, people were. They had lost everything, and found the ground of their being. Without romanticizing poverty, I think of a spectrum between the material and the spiritual. It’s certainly possible to balance comfort and spiritual groundedness, but having wealth can also be a distraction. We get swept up in wanting more when all the wealth we’ll ever need is inside.
Inner peace is priceless.
Thanks Julie. I think the inner peace you describe is possible but grows harder the more people you feel depend upon you. I have never been a good meditator and I wish I had a better spiritual practice.
Same
Find a teacher. Ideally in a system/faith you are already comfortable/experienced with. Someone who can challenge you to excel, and ensure your practice allows you to progress at an optimal rate.
Then put in the time, applying as many hours/week as sustainable. Ideally comfortably sustainable.
If you wish you had a better spiritual practice, then why don't you just practice? Not to sound snotty or judgmental, but when you want something like that, there is nothing but your own mind preventing you from achieving it. It's a practice, not a perfect.
Just like any other discipline, such as investing money, working out, drinking enough water, it only takes your own commitment to what you say you want.
You don't need to sit in lotus pose with your eyes closed for an hour every day, trying to empty your busy mind.
A spiritual practice requires only your own mindfulness. Perhaps as you walk Sophie in the park, you can practice noticing. Thic Nhat Hanh offers a beautiful walking meditation.
I know it's challenging when people depend on you. The truth is, if you dropped dead right now, they would figure their own lives out. Don't forget the truth, so eloquently sung by Beyoncé, "Don't ever for a second get to thinking your irreplaceable."
Your writing sometimes seems inspired. Perhaps, that is practice enough.
Julie, I love your answer.
Thanks, Rona. It feels like the seed of something more, if I take the time to explore deeper.
Julie, the idea is timely. I hope you will go deeper.
When all of my friends from prep school got law degrees or MBA's and then developed often extremely lucrative careers, I went to Asia seeking enlightenment, which eventually led to Thailand, and becoming a Buddhist forest monk for four years.
When I washed out, Oriental Medicine became my new vocation. With an emphasis on inner process, on seeking/finding the mystical. Fast forward to the aughts when I put out my own shingle...but like literally every ex-monk I knew or knew of, was not terribly good at business, at marketing, at practice management. The Great Recession was a wipeout, wherein I lost my practice, and all my capital, and was homeless for a while, living in a tent in the woods of Marin, doing $180/hr phone consults with technocrats hungry for happiness and inner peace.
Being Happy is just a skill. Like pretty much any other skill. Some talent + decent teacher(s) + practicing = progress. Seriously, it's that simple. As such, it is also a commodity, subject to the law of supply and demand. But it is taught in Buddhism that in the space between happiness and unhappiness, success and failure, pain and pleasure, winning and losing...there lies another way, another path. Which is supposedly the final mountain to climb.
David, you're handsome. (Get your beautiful wife out to see this, NOT flirting). In fact, watching you on a recent interview I thought you look like a 35 year old good looking actor who went into makeup and instructed them to make you look 60ish, and the makeup person failed but still added some grey and a couple of fake age lines around your eyes. My financial worries mirror yours even though I am middle class. As I head to a No Kings protest, I am very anxious about living in an autocracy. Be well all.
Good luck, Sharon, and thank you for going to that protest. And thanks for those compliments!
David, you got me this morning… never have I considered asking ChatGPT about my age or appearance! Just tried it and its guess was 10 years off (10 years too young). Now I’ll spend all day reminding myself that it’s a bot and that I should NOT succumb to its “flattery” (just as I did when I fed it a draft recently of a Substack post). Has anyone else tried this?? Tx also for in-depth explanation of mimetic desire.
Debbie, thanks fro the comment and I think when to comes to guessing age ChatGPT is infallible!
I’m most worried about the seeming failure of our system of government. If I dwell on it, that leads me to worry about the devaluation of the dollar, and what that could mean for my retirement savings.
Teri, that's a worry that's infiltrated my inner world and disturbed some of my inner peace.
I’m getting ready to embark on a coast to coast road trip. I’m anxious somebody is going to see my CA plates and mistake me for one of the progressive nit-wits that created a tire fire inside a dumpster that is CA these days. Actually it’s really not causing me much anxiety, because conservatives that dwell in flyover country typically are rational and respect other people’s property. I’d be more at risk if I drove a truck with ID plates and a MAGA sticker through SF.
Hi Jrod. Your comment reminds me of a wonderful scene in Curb Your Enthusiasm where Larry realizes that he can effectively cancel a lunch date in Beverly Hills he's been dreading by wearing his MAGA cap.
I don’t have much anxiety in my life right now. However, I’m approaching retirement in 2-3 years and I’m concerned that I won’t have enough money saved to cover medical expenses and other unanticipated expenses. I continue working in a relatively high stress, fairly dysfunctional corporate sales management job because it pays well and I can save a significant portion of my salary in tax-deferred accounts. The uncertainty of the economy contributes to my concerns.
Hi Jeanne, I might write a bit about the stock market and use another of our behavioral "tics" in analyzing where we are.
I'm anxious about my aunt, who lies in bed, recently widowed, too weak to walk and unable to attend to their 40 acre property, off-grid, in the middle of the Arizona desert. I can care for her, but her will to leave (I meant to write live, but I think leave is also correct) is entirely in her hands.
I'm anxious about my own uncertain future as a late 50-something with no real capital to fall back on when things blow up. Global tumult might make it all irrelevant.
In spite of these and so many more anxieties that keep me awake at night, trying to figure it all out, I find peace in the moment.
For me, bigger than my anxiety, is my desire to see peace instead of this. I can look outside myself, all around at terrible and atrocious things.
And.
There is beauty. Even in the baking heat of the desert, I see the beauty of this magnificent planet we inhabit. I feel the beauty of other humans, who are also desperately fearful and anxious, but who still take time to smile and offer small kindnesses.
I see the richness of humanity, unfurling as delicate beautiful ribbons of love, hope and opportunity.
As long as we hold onto love and kindness, there is truly nothing to fear.
Peace in the moment is a valuable refuge, Deborah.
If I outlive my money, I could live in my son’s spare room. Writing doesn’t require much space. Outliving my hope for the world is a greater challenge. I cultivate resilience by contemplating and honoring beauty everywhere I find it, from friendship to the natural world. I find much to celebrate. Today the news is a poke through my heart. By the way, David, I want to shake that kid who called you ugly. You are shining the light of inquiry and compassion on issues that too often go ignored. That’s beautiful.
Thanks Rona! Very much appreciated.
You’ve nailed the generalized anxiety many of us are feeling, David, and I agree that we have to push back on the doomscrolling. But the thing that makes me most anxious right now? The business interests benefiting from AI and their lack of transparency. The technology could be transformative, but its development and incredible resource drain is in the hands of a few tech billionaires - so, yeah, I’m scared about that, and I think my fears are well-founded.
AI is scary because we don't know where it will lead and, as you point put, what powers it will confer or take away.
I think AI will be transformative but I think there is so much capital going in to it that it seems, financially, like a bubble. Like the railroad boom in the 19th century where railroads were overbuilt.
I use ChatGPT as my search engine now because it's better than Google. I always ask for and check sources. It's very useful for research.
AI can be helpful for all sorts of things, including research. What worries me is how we teach young developing minds to use it. Journalism as a profession tends to focus on the bad, because it is a natural hook, but there is also a lot to be said for pointing out potential consequences. While humans may be hard-wired to focus on threats, there is also the kneejerk tendency to avoid looking hard at overwhelming disasters. I see that all around me now with helpless shrugs about climate change and the impact of generative AI (already) on critical-thinking skills.
Your piece did make me realize that wealthy tech execs like Sam Altman might be beset by their own version of status anxiety. Trouble is, his anxiety about keeping up affects us all.
Sam Altman is young so I'm guessing he still is feverishly competing.
True: A'I' is not all grim. There is, for example, a wonderful BBC example of 're-seeding' coral reefs using A'I'. (Leaving aside the cause-and-effect analysis, and the outrageous monopolisation of water resources - worldwide - and the slave wage practices of many third world data centres, just for a moment.)
However, when you combine it (as successive US Congresses have done, by commission or omission - who cares) with Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, it is open season for 'monetising hatred' (and young / children's self-hatred / suicide) - in the IRL world, in which that Act lives. It's high time the American public, and parents of young children in particular, woke up (a deliberate use of the term 'woke') to that fact.
Much as it's tempting to blame 'social media' for 'that' Act, they never passed it - they do not sit in Congress (appearances to the contrary) and majorities of both ruling parties have had more than enough time (9 years and counting) to rescind it. What's keeping you from cleaning up your own back yard, guys?
Roy, I have no good answer to your question.
Thanks, David.
I’m a few days late to this thread, but your eighth-grade story hit me right in the solar plexus. It’s astonishing how one cruel comment can echo for decades—and how quickly we internalize bad self-definitions as truth.
Right now, I’m most anxious about holding together the fragile, ferocious thing we’ve built—a press that feels like a legacy for our daughters. And simultaneously fielding texts from my father threatening to call the police if I don’t respond quickly enough... I'm like, but I'm in a meeting. Remember meetings, pop? So yes: I worry about unnecessary drama. But I also marvel at how ancestral anxiety can be channeled into creation.
Thank you for this post—it made me feel a little more human today.
Thanks Alisa. We have to catch up!