Dwelling on To-Dos

I’ve always been a rather anxious person. As a kid, my parents learned the hard way that I needed to be told the exact schedule for all family trips, or else I’d be a sobbing, cranky mess in the back of our periwinkle blue van.

In high school, I was that person who studied for hours for a subject that I already knew better than my family tree. I was able to survive my freshmen and the start of my sophomore years of college with my overly detail-oriented and obsessive attitude without having a nervous breakdown, but only because I was marching through my gen-ed classes, basically glorified completion courses, and my schedule was practically wide open.

It was then, resting on my throne of comfortable self-conviction that I had college all figured out, that spring semester of my sophomore year bowled me over like a gopher on the highway. Suddenly I had “real” classes, where I had to put in the hours outside of class, not out of habit, but because of terrifying necessity. To top it off, my schedule, which had once been basically a barren wasteland, was now suffering from severe overpopulation. I finally had legitimate reasons to be stressed and anxious.

By mid-March, I was utterly spent, physically and emotionally. One day, then, with my mental checklist spasming through my mind as I sprinted across campus on my way to something important through sheeting rain, I had a literal epiphany. While thinking about the million things I had to do, I realized that individually, I loved and was interested in each of them, but together, they formed the monster of my nightmares. However, I couldn’t just decide not to write my four essays that were due the next week, quit the track team, or stop attempting to cook for myself. In my semi-delirious state, then, I came to an absurd but strangely simple solution. I just couldn’t let myself be stressed about everything I needed to complete anymore. I realized that it would all get done, regardless of how much mental energy I put into worrying about getting it done.

This seemingly obvious and ridiculous sounding realization saved my semester (drama intended). I was so much more relaxed as I waded my way through the swamp of my duties and responsibilities. All the mental energy that I had been putting into stressing about my responsibilities, I could now put in to actually completing what I needed to. I found then, that things actually got done better, faster, and I actually enjoyed doing them. By not constantly dwelling on my to-do list, I was able to liberate my mind, and live “in the moment” more fully. This allowed me to actually enjoy and rejuvenate myself during my moments of “free time,” instead of spending them feeling guilty and anxious, which made me actually more productive when I went back to work.

It was scary to decide to stop stressing, and in the beginning, incredibly difficult to follow through with. My anxious tendencies and habits had been with me since I was a kid, and habits that deeply ingrained are hard to break. Obviously I still get stressed at times and begin to channel some kind of deranged ostrich. However, I’m getting better at working through those moments by reminding myself how much happier and productive I am when I stay calm and don’t let myself get sucked into the tropical storm of my to-do list.

My high school self would have been terrified to consciously attempt to let go of her stress out of fear that stress fuels the productivity that leads to success. But life happens, and in the two years since I’ve graduated, I’ve come to realize that stress fueled productivity simply isn’t sustainable. Choosing to stay calm when it is so easy to become stressed actually made completing what I needed to so much easier. And most wonderfully, activities that had gradually lost their appeal due to how anxious they had made me, I was able to love again.

Josie Braaten is the Courier's editorial intern. She is a sophmore at Minnesota State University, Mankato.