Rollo May's 'The Meaning of Anxiety' is a four hundred forty-eight page(paperback edition) analysis of the cycle of anxiety, describing in detail the feelings one goes through as one journeys through anxiety. It is a very painful experience which is drawn out depending upon how much free time you have to read through the whole book. If you work for a living then reading through the book and absorbing all the information is drawn out slowly and the experience of anxiety lingers. It is not an easy read if you want to understand the dimensions, there must be time afforded for the mind to absorb the information so the psyche can assimilate the data presented.
Everyone who wants to avoid the lingering effects of anxiety would benefit from Mr May's exhaustive work, reading about anxiety is a far better experience than living through it without some background information to ease the pain. "A month reading about hell is far better than living there."
On the other hand, Mel Brooks' movie 'High Anxiety' takes one through the same territory from the vantage point of laughter. Mr Brooks teaches the terror of anxiety in such a manner to have the student crying with tears of laughter. He takes you to the exact same place as Mr May but from a different point of view. Granted Mr Brooks' treatment of anxiety is a bit more simplistic than Mr May but he gets the point across.
Consider life, on the one hand you can take it all seriously or consider it all from the point of view of laughter, or humor, not that you should be the laughing stock, or be laughed at, but perhaps be laughed with. Nobody gets out of it alive, in the end we all die, and the quality of life is all we get to live. And if we spend our lives miserable, crying over our circumstances it is simply double punishment; having a miserable life, and feeling miserable about it. If you are poor, celebrate that you have your health, if you have ill health celebrate you can see, or you can walk, or you can talk. Feeling sorry for yourself is ok for a very short spell, then it is time to get on with living. The poor carry on with their lives, so too do the less able, we especially are grateful or pay attention to those who live with a smile on their face or those who do not drag others down with them. Those who though less fortunate than what we believe to be fortunate, carry themselves with responsibility, they are not victims of their circumstances, they refuse to be victims, they choose to live their lives as BEST as they can, and their best is not feeling sorry for themselves. They seem not to have any anxiety. "They said things could get worse and they did"
We only have, right now, so we might as well make the BEST of, right now. We can not afford to waste this moment, it may be the last one we get.
Everyone who wants to avoid the lingering effects of anxiety would benefit from Mr May's exhaustive work, reading about anxiety is a far better experience than living through it without some background information to ease the pain. "A month reading about hell is far better than living there."
On the other hand, Mel Brooks' movie 'High Anxiety' takes one through the same territory from the vantage point of laughter. Mr Brooks teaches the terror of anxiety in such a manner to have the student crying with tears of laughter. He takes you to the exact same place as Mr May but from a different point of view. Granted Mr Brooks' treatment of anxiety is a bit more simplistic than Mr May but he gets the point across.
Consider life, on the one hand you can take it all seriously or consider it all from the point of view of laughter, or humor, not that you should be the laughing stock, or be laughed at, but perhaps be laughed with. Nobody gets out of it alive, in the end we all die, and the quality of life is all we get to live. And if we spend our lives miserable, crying over our circumstances it is simply double punishment; having a miserable life, and feeling miserable about it. If you are poor, celebrate that you have your health, if you have ill health celebrate you can see, or you can walk, or you can talk. Feeling sorry for yourself is ok for a very short spell, then it is time to get on with living. The poor carry on with their lives, so too do the less able, we especially are grateful or pay attention to those who live with a smile on their face or those who do not drag others down with them. Those who though less fortunate than what we believe to be fortunate, carry themselves with responsibility, they are not victims of their circumstances, they refuse to be victims, they choose to live their lives as BEST as they can, and their best is not feeling sorry for themselves. They seem not to have any anxiety. "They said things could get worse and they did"
We only have, right now, so we might as well make the BEST of, right now. We can not afford to waste this moment, it may be the last one we get.
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