Why do people feel anxious? What is the point of anxiety?

If you're crossing a road and see a car coming at you at high speed, your heart will suddenly accelerate, your eyes will focus on the distance between the car and you, and you'll decide how fast you'll have to walk to reach safety on the side of the road, so you quickly cross it. You feel fear, and that fear gives you the strength to rush to safety.

But if you start crossing the road quickly and you are surprised to see many cars coming towards you from the driveway farther away in the opposite direction, you are suddenly stuck in the middle of the road, not knowing which direction to turn, your heart beats violently faster, but unlike the fear experience mentioned above, now you will feel panic, and your vision may suddenly become blurred. You have an impulse to blindly rush in either direction — and this impulse, we can hopefully assume, you finally control it.

After the car passes by you, you may feel a slight dizziness, and there is a sense of emptiness in your heart, which is anxiety.

In fear, we know what is threatening us, and the situation gives us energy, our perception becomes sharper, and we take steps to pull our legs and run, or other appropriate ways to overcome danger.

But in anxiety, we are threatened but do not know what to do to face the danger.

Anxiety is a feeling of being "trapped" and "overwhelmed"; And our perception becomes blurred or unclear, not sharper.

Anxiety can appear with mild or great intensity. It can be a moderate tension before meeting an important person; And before an exam that is closely related to one's future and one cannot be sure whether one will pass it, it may be another worry.

Or when a person waits to learn whether his loved one died in an air crash or whether his child drowned after a storm on the lake or whether beads of sweat appear on his forehead, it may be a total fear.

People experience anxiety in a variety of ways: an inner "pain," a contraction of the heart, generalized confusion;

Or they can describe it as feeling as if the whole world around them is dark gray or dark, or as if they feel a sense of the horror and helplessness that a child experiences after realizing that he is lost.

Anxiety can take on a variety of forms and intensities, as it is the basic response that humans make when their survival is in danger.

It is the basic response when a certain value that humanity considers as important to its survival is in danger.

Fear is a threat to a certain aspect of the self - if a child fights with someone, he may be injured, but this injury will not threaten his life; Or college students may be a little afraid of the final exam, but he knows that even if the exam is not passed, the sky will not fall.

But once the threat becomes large enough to endanger the entire ego, then he experiences anxiety.

Anxiety strikes at the "core" of our ego: it's what we feel when our existence as our self is threatened.

If when a friend walks past you on the street without greeting you, you feel a slight pain in your heart, but although the threat is not strong, the pain will continue, and you will be confused and look around for "explanations" as to why the friend snubbed me, which shows that this threat threatens what is fundamentally in your heart.

At its most intense, anxiety is the most painful emotion left over from human beings.

As Shakespeare said, "The dangers of the present are far less than imagined for the future"; And people would rather jump off a lifeboat and drown than face greater suffering, that is, constantly feeling doubtful and uncertain about whether they can be saved.

The threat of death is the most common symbol of anxiety, but most of us in our "civilized" age are not always at risk of facing the barrel of a gun or other threat, especially death threats.

Much of our anxiety usually arises when certain values that we hold dear to our very important existence as ourselves are threatened.

We are anxious because we don't know what roles to pursue and what codes of conduct to believe.

Our personal anxiety is a bit like the anxiety of our nation, it is a kind of confusion and confusion about where we should go.

Should individuals strive to compete for financial success and wealth, as we have been taught in the past, or should they be the kind and gracious people that everyone loves? He can't have both. This is often fraught with choices that can only lead to anxiety.

The anxiety of modern people is mainly rooted in the basic confusion about goals and values.

Certain values, such as success, love for someone, enjoying life in time, the freedom to tell the truth, the better life than to live, or being true to one's inner voice, serve as reasons for one's life.

Since for most people in our society, the dominant values are being liked, accepted, and approved, much of the anxiety of our time stems from the threat of not being liked, isolated, lonely, or abandoned.

Most of the examples given above about anxiety are "normal anxiety," that is, the anxiety is commensurate with the real threat of a dangerous situation.

For example, in a fire, a war, or a key exam at a university, anyone will feel some anxiety to a greater or lesser degree – it is unrealistic not to feel anxious.

As he develops and faces a variety of different life crises, everyone experiences more normal anxiety in many different ways.

The more he is able to face and survive these "normal anxieties"—weaning from his mother, leaving home to go to school, and taking responsibility for his career and marriage sooner or later—the less likely he is to develop neurotic anxiety (anxiety disorder).

Normal anxiety is inevitable, and we should openly acknowledge and confront these normal anxieties and learn how to use them constructively.