By some form of bad luck, divine intervention, or maybe even curse, I cannot escape the door handle’s grasp, which I mean quite literally. Whenever I am having a bad day, I always find myself caught on a door handle. Be it loose pants, a sweatshirt, or a sleeve, I walk home after a long day of school ready to rest, opening my door and proceeding into my bedroom only to be halted by what appears to be some sort of invisible force field. Only it is nothing invisible, rather the cruel and unusual justice of the door handle.
Door handles challenge my mood and force me to explore opposition. The door handle presents a simple jolt and an equally simple emotional reaction. I often try to fight the frustration with ration and reason, as well as see the other perspective. The door handle does not deserve my aggression for a conflict I prompted on my own. I strive to look at these situations unbiased. This thinking is present in my everyday life and everyday conflict. It is vital to my success. I make the attempt to challenge my beliefs as often as possible: my strong opinions cannot exist without opposition research and respect. Even in actions that typically only produce an instinctive response, I seek to ask myself why.
I would not put myself into the typical fight or flight bubble. Instead, I try to attack my own psyche with every valid response I can think of.
People describe me as a calm person in the face of adversity. I do not think they would predict the quantity of thoughts I have in times of conflict. I think as many points of view as I can introduce into a situation the more confident and less anxious I feel about a decision.
I have fallen victim to anxiety, occasionally at the hands of my own thoughts; the way I see it, if I have the brain power to create great feelings of anxiety, there is no reason I do not have the same power to generate calm feelings and reactions in any situation. I try to apply this sentiment to react in a calm way so as to buy myself time to evaluate the situation. When someone else makes a mistake, it is easy to react off emotion and assign all blame and negative energy towards them. Even in the extremely short time of the mistake happening and initial calm response, I am able to catch up mentally and produce the response I feel best fits the situation. I say things I reconsider all the time and things I do not mean, but rarely are these detrimental to any of my relationships. I would have to put in far too much thought into a potentially relationship-altering statement for me to not standby it. It is important to note that even in reaching this comfortable state of backing up my own claims I am still open to change. Losing my intellectual flexibility would be a detriment to who I am and who I am trying to be.
I tend to look at the past four years and see how much I have changed and compare it to the next four years. I have experienced the growth and maturity that high school brings into the mind and I want to amplify this en route to becoming an adult. I want to change more in these next four years than I have in the last eighteen to more closely fit the ideals of who I want to be, ideals that are ever changing as well. The pursuit of idealist qualities in oneself is a never ending struggle but a journey I reap the benefits of and enjoy pursuing. I enjoy my life when I am challenging myself. Plain and simple, I will do what will provide me with this challenge so I can enjoy myself and reap the benefits of forward progress.
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Aidan, this is a super good and interesting post. At first, I was like wow is he going to talk about door handles for the whole post, haha. But you actually did a great job relating it to such a bigger idea and the introduction was super relatable. I really liked how you reflected in this piece and talked about both the future and past. I definitely struggle with anxiety as well and sleep insomnia because of it. I often find myself awake for hours just going through the day and what I could have done differently or what I have ahead in the next day. I appreciate you opening up about this and overall thought this piece was super well written!
I thought this post was great, I loved how you started with something mundane and arbitrary like an interaction with a door knob, but used that as a segway into your struggle with anxiety and your goals for personal growth. I have also had many similar struggles with coping with anxiety, and I found your revelation of , “if I have the brain power to create great feelings of anxiety, there is no reason I do not have the same power to generate calm feelings and reactions in any situation. ” as extremely powerful. Often times I fall victim to the cynicism of my thoughts, and forget that I am more than just the collective of thoughts,m and that I have power over my thinking.