The Bear in Your Tent

Before I even get started, this essay will probably warp your mind. Not because it's such a new, mind-blowing concept, but because I have a hard enough time understanding it myself. This will be full of paradoxes, self-contradictions, and catch-22s. And when I have it all figured it all out, I'll let you know my progress.

I picked up a saying from Merlin Mann, and I've started using it: “Fear is knowing there's a bear outside your tent, anxiety is not knowing if there's a bear outside your tent.” I've come realize, also, that fear may trigger a fight-or-flight response, but anxiety is more likely to paralyze you. The root of anxiety, ironically, is comfort: We have, and therefore we are afraid to lose what we have. Fear motivates, anxiety does not.

As I write this, Hurricane Irene is on its way to decimate the East Coast. I have taken in all the patio furniture. I have hooked up an uninterpretable power supply to my refrigerator, and even put in two frozen bottles of water to provide a little emergency cold if needed. And now... I wait. Aside from a light drizzle, it's pretty dry out there. No heavy winds yet, no thunder, nothing. There is nothing I can do at this moment to make the damage more or less severe, because it hasn't happened yet.

At this moment, I face being broke, my unemployment has run out, the place I live in is perpetually on the verge of being sold, so the threat of being “homeless” (which realistically entails moving in with with another family member, not actually living on the street) hovers above me like the sword of Damocles. I face criminal charges that could land me in jail, or at least leave me with a record, which, of course, makes it that much harder to find a job and a place. I need to further my education, see my therapist, take expensive pills, and try to plan for the future, while the very foundation I need to lay is collapsing under me.

And what can I do about it?

Nothing. Nothing more, and nothing less than I've already been doing. I can't change the situation I'm already in. I can't blame my past self, or my parents, or the President, or whoever. I can't change what I've done, I can't change the job market, there are so many avenues to look for jobs, and for every low-end ice cream scooping job out there, there are a hundred people ahead of me who are desperate to do anything, scooped ice cream in high school, or even both. There is one, and only one factor to which I have complete control: my own mind. I have learned that when you have this little control over a situation, the only way to take control is to let go.

Note that I didn't say “give up.” I said “let go.”

Giving up would be to stop looking, to stop seeing my therapist, to stop talking to my lawyer, to stop being, or at least trying, to be a good person at heart. But there comes a point when your heart starts beating faster, and your thoughts start racing, and you don't have anyone you can turn to....take a deep breath, and stay in the present moment. If you imagine a future full of pain and hopelessness, you're making the present painful and hopeless. If you dwell on your past mistakes without being able, at that moment, to fix them, you're just living with regret. So the only thing I can do is focus on this moment.

For the moment, at least, I have a roof over my head, and I won't be homeless on the street, I'll be on my brother's couch. I don't know how severe the legal punishment will be, and as irrational and unfair as the system as a whole can be, I can't change it.

So faced with this hopelessness, what can I do? Well, for one, I started this blog. I've been on a tear, applying to a dozen jobs a day, and writing essays in between. I go to bed and wake up earlier...or at least find fewer reasons to stay up. There have been plenty of times when just when I think things can't get worse, they do, and I could yell, and scream, or cry, or panic, or just hide under my bed. But those problems are still out there. Somewhere. So the only thing I can do is go outside my tent and face that bear. That is...if the bear is really out there.