Yesterday was a holiday. I work in a government organisation, so I was officially on leave. But my customers were not. I dislike this position. The reason is simple — customers keep calling for their work. On a holiday, I don’t hold any real power. I cannot act. I cannot move things forward. And I feel powerless. That powerlessness elevates anxiety.
My life truly revolves around anxiety. I spend a lot of time either suffering through it, running away from it, or trying to figure out how to deal with it.
My ambition, combined with incompetence in a few specific areas, inaction at times, and ignorance at others, results in anxiety. For more than 14 years, I tried to address this anxiety without seeking real help. After 14 years, two things changed in my life, and they reduced my anxiety significantly.
First, I sought help. I met a therapist and spoke with him. His support was initially generic, but simply addressing my loneliness and talking openly about my anxiety helped me deal with nearly 85% of it.
Second, I started using ChatGPT in coach mode. I began observing myself and discussing the state I was in.
I realised that I have an innate desire to talk about my issues. Simply talking about them — even with AI — has created tremendous positive change over the last few months. Loneliness is the key issue. Even when we are connected, we are deeply lonely.
We are surrounded by expectations, not support. We are judged by what we deliver and the promises we make. External validation ends up leading our lives. For the last 14 years, I did the same. Anxiety led to confusion, paralysis, and inaction. That led to pressure, stress, and even more anxiety. Running away from it felt obvious — but it was the wrong choice.
Self-confidence is a quality. I am skilled, but I am not self-confident. Or maybe I am self-confident only when I am alone. In power dynamics, I hesitate to assert myself. I just returned from a big event where I chose to hide behind a large chair so my seniors wouldn’t notice me. Maybe I don’t want to disappoint them. Or maybe I am already disappointed in myself.
I know I am working genuinely hard toward my goals. But the effort does not always reflect in numbers. Sometimes it does. Yet I define myself more by my failures than by my successes.
Perhaps this is also because success feels natural to me. Whatever I have achieved, I achieved without extreme effort, so I do not value it much. But my failures feel personal. I worked hard at them, and despite the effort, I failed. Or at least I feel that I worked hard and still failed.
Right now, I have one open loop pending. As always, I am avoiding it. I am fully aware that ignoring it will eventually create serious problems. I am still a man in the making. I have become more sensitive to daily tasks. I am using templates to manage pending work. I am taking conscious efforts to prevent tasks from piling up. Yet I am still struggling to stay afloat against my past behavior.
Hopefully, I will find my path to fire.