THE RISE OF ANXIETY

Anxiety has been on the rise for a while. A study by the National Institutes of Health indicates that anxiety steadily increased in the adult population from 2008 to 2018. In that same time frame, anxiety doubled among eighteen- to twenty-five-year-old young adults.1 But in the first year of the pandemic, the World Health Organization measured a 25 percent increase in anxiety and depression worldwide.2

We all had different experiences of anxiety during the global pandemic. My first was sitting on a plane in Delhi, India, in the early morning hours of a mid-February Saturday in 2020. Covid-19 was just beginning to hit our news feeds, but it felt mostly an “out there” issue for me at the time.

As our scheduled departure time came and went, I noticed flight attendants conferencing in the first-class galley. After more than an hour delay, the flight purser announced that there was a passenger with flu-like symptoms whom they were assessing, who needed to be deplaned before we could depart. Anxiety!

We were told that if we brought that passenger with us back to the States, the whole plane load of us would be quarantined for two weeks; the first cruise ship had recently been quarantined in Japan with infected passengers. It took about ninety minutes before they convinced the passenger to deplane, and we finally left the gate. As we taxied toward take-off, an announcement was made, requesting that if there was a doctor on board to make themselves known. We had already left the sick passenger behind. Now what? More anxiety.

Just before we pulled onto the runway to leave, an announcement told us that yet another passenger was found to have flu-like symptoms and that we would be returning to the gate. There was an audible gasp from the rest of us. Even more anxiety.

Once we got back to the gate, it didn’t take long for this second passenger to do the walk of shame from the back of the plane to the exit. I had needed the restroom for some time, but we’d been told to remain seated. Once the passenger went by and departed, I jumped up and ran into first class for the restroom that I could see was not in use.

While in there, a text notification went off on my smartphone. When I got out of the restroom, I read the text. It essentially said that because of our departure delay, the crew had timed out and would not be able to depart on the flight any longer due to FAA regulations on shift lengths and such. I showed the text to one of the attendants standing there and he looked as concerned as I felt. I went back to my seat and wrestled with what I was going to do in Delhi for twenty-four more hours. I had no local contacts or plans. Still more anxiety.

After about fifteen minutes, an attendant came on to say that if we would be seated immediately, they had been given special permission by the FAA to work a longer than allowed shift and take us home. Finally, after a total delay of three hours, we departed. Nearly twenty-four hours later I arrived home, gave my wife, Gem, a kiss hello, and we both soon found ourselves in bed for the next month with Covid-19.

I began to feel this pandemic crisis emotionally, therefore, a month before what would become a worldwide shutdown. And it began a season in which my anxieties would assail me in new and surprising ways.

WHAT ANXIETY LOOKS LIKE

What I’ve been learning is that anxiety is a deep-rooted habit that has formed in me over time. It’s easy enough to worry about things that feel or look bad to me, but I can also worry when things are going well (When is all of this finally going to turn bad? I wonder). Acknowledging the reality of anxiety as a habit has been good news for me. With work, habits can be changed.

The ways in which I have let anxiety malform me can be reformed.

I have been learning to cultivate perspectives and habits of peace.

I’m learning how to upgrade my internal operating system from anxiety to peace. An operating system is the software that provides a foundation for the basic functions of a computer. Though we are far more complex than a computer, our souls have a sort of operating system as well. Few of us think much about the operating system for our computers. And too few of us think about the ones that run our lives.

Anxiety has too often been my basic way of approaching situations and people. It wasn’t as though there was a moment when I sat down and decided that it was the system for me. It was the system I’d received growing up. I’ve built programs on this foundation that “work,” but not very well. Anxiety has proven to be a bad habit of soul hurry that I can unlearn and have been unlearning.

What does this operating system upgrade look like for me?

• ♦ It has replaced a tunnel-vision perspective with a more spacious and options-rich one.

• ♦ It has replaced an energy-demanding and energy-draining dynamic with one that has proven energy-renewing.

• ♦ It has replaced knee-jerk assumptions about my past, present, and future with a freeing vision of many very good options that surround me.

When I call peace an operating system, I’m saying that it is possible to learn to allow peace to be the underlying framework of our lives. Instead of accepting insecurity as my default, I’ve learned to assume confidence and resourcefulness as my foundation. I’ve replaced a lot of internalized stress with more inner peace and calm. Peace might even become something unconsciously trusted rather than frantically sought. I’ve found that while peace is a fruit of the Spirit, anxiety is not. Peace is creative. Anxiety isn’t. Peaceful is resourceful, but worry isn’t.

I’ve been discovering that peace isn’t hiding from me and playing hard to get. Peace is in me because my very body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. That Spirit bears the fruit of peace from within me. It makes a great deal of difference to remember that I’m living in the Prince of Peace and he is living in me. The peace of God can bubble up from within at any moment and in any place. The sort of peace the world offers is profoundly dependent on optimal conditions and situations.

A lot of my worries are triggered by circumstances. Something happens (or threatens to happen) and anxiety is triggered. I imagine disastrous trajectories inevitably growing out of present dynamics. Anxiety has sometimes felt like my only reasonable option in the face of certain perceived hazards or threats. But I’ve never regretted upgrading my operating system from anxiety to peace.

I wish that it were a permanent upgrade, but I often have to reboot into this more peaceful way of living. One way I do this is by recalling that the Lord is shepherding me well (Psalm 23:1). What more could I want?

It may not seem realistic to be at peace every moment. I’m not claiming to have arrived in a place where I never feel anxious or worried anymore. We all live real lives with challenges, obstacles, and threats. And anxiety still erupts in me in reaction to unpleasant surprises. When I talk about a non-anxious life, I’m talking about something that can begin within us. I’ve often said that busy is a matter of calendar, and hurry is a matter of soul. In that spirit, anxiety is a result of focusing on our circumstances, and peace is a fruit of focusing on the Prince of Peace, the Shepherd of our souls.

It’s been good to remind myself that anxious living isn’t a faithful reflection of my present reality in God’s good kingdom. Rather than...