5 Opportunities I Missed Because of My Anxiety

My anxiety is a weird creature. Humongous and loud but also nuanced and subtle. It operates within a realm of constant contradiction, trapped between unending longing for more than the present and inescapable fear of what the future may bring. It serves as a springboard for inertia, fomenting my inability and unwillingness to effect meaningful change in my life. I recently began coming to terms with just how much this impacts my experience. Often, in the dead of night, when everyone else dreams beautiful dreams, I mull over all of the opportunities that have fallen through because my anxious mind and chronic overthinking made me a prisoner. I think, what would have been the outcomes of these circumstances if I had stopped for one second and believed in myself? Always one for self-reflection, I made a list of the top five things I've foregone because I convinced myself I wasn't good enough. 

1. A Perfect Research Project

A few months ago, I was confronted with an exciting research opportunity directly in line with my area of study. The proposed research would pair a student from a Canadian university with a Chilean student to undertake a collaborative project for two months. As a third-year undergraduate in the Latin American and Caribbean Studies program at my university, this was right up my alley. Immediately, I began work on my resume, spending days polishing my cover letter and emphasizing all the better parts of myself. When it came down to the wire, though, I couldn't hit send on the email. My faithful friend, anxiety, crept in and started muttering sweet nothings in my ear. Why are you stressing yourself out doing this? It's an astronomical waste of time. Aren't you already happy as you are? You're just going to cause yourself pain if you don't get it.

2. A Date With a Kind Guy

In my first month of university, I volunteered for a host of random student-led organizations. Alone in a foreign country and living off-campus, I was eager to meet new people and was voraciously signing up for any opportunity to form connections. During one of these ill-fated volunteer sessions, I was stuck tabling with a guy for some cause or another that I don't even remember anymore. After talking for four hours, he offered to show me around the city as he had grown up here all his life. I agreed because I liked him well enough, and during our long talk, he didn't strike me as the crazy, stalker, keep-a-girl-in-his-basement type. We made a plan to meet up the next day, exchanged numbers, and I left, feeling excited for the next day of exploring the city together. 

However, when the next day arrived, doubt and fear started creeping in, and I ended up cancelling, giving some bullshit excuse about feeling unwell. After that, I ignored all of his follow-up text messages and didn't see him again until a year later. He avoided me. I don't blame him. I was an asshole. Worse than that, I couldn't adequately explain that it wasn't personal, that I actually did like him, but my anxious mind didn't like ME. 

3. My Dream Program

My dream program was a Bachelor of Commerce degree that would whisk me away to beautiful Nova Scotia, Canada. Unfortunately, I got waitlisted and, as fate would have it, only accepted after I had already made peace with my decision to attend my current university in Ottawa. Anxiety and change are nemeses. Pivoting my attention back to my dream school would have involved a lot of running around, rearranging flights and my room and board. Entirely too much for my fragile mind to handle. In the end, I convinced myself it was too much effort, that it wasn't worth the trouble and I have attended my second-choice school ever since.

4. Countless Social Outings

My mind also dims my perception of fun. What I consider entertaining and promising in one instance is transformed into the thing of nightmares in another. For this reason, I tend to opt out of huge social gatherings (fashion-forward now that we're in a pandemic) and spend much time alone. Being alone sucks, but social events and networking opens a whole can of worms that seems that much more threatening. 

5. The Lottery (probably)

Okay, so I've never actually purchased a lottery ticket but I think all good things come in fives. When I was younger, my mom, who occasionally purchased lottery tickets, would respond to my claims that they're a scam with "You can't win if you don't have a ticket." This blanket statement covers many aspects of my life where I have failed to purchase the proverbial ticket and was left in a perpetual state of regret and wondering. Wondering how things would have turned out otherwise. Wondering if my decision against action pivoted my life towards the darkest timeline. Would I have been happier? Is this outcome the best of the bunch? In this all-encompassing category, I toss parties I didn't go to, desserts I didn't eat because I was "watching my figure," experiences I didn't participate in, and interesting people I was too shy to talk to.

"We crucify ourselves between two thieves: regret for yesterday and fear of tomorrow" - Fulton Oursler

Regret is the most frustrating emotion because it poses questions that are impossible to resolve. It asks what can never be known. What would have happened? The truth is there's no way of knowing definitively if your life would have been better or worse had you chosen an alternative option. The only knowable thing is now. Armed with insight gained from experiences of regret, how are you planning to approach life differently the next time a major decision comes around? For one, I have been making a conscious effort to intentionally and systematically approach every decision so that I can ensure that rejection of one alternative over another comes from a place of logic rather than fear and anxiety. This isn't easy, and it certainly isn't an overnight procedure but takes incremental practice and refining. I think we all owe it to ourselves to try, though.

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