More Random Thoughts: Get Motivated / Are We Anxiety Junkies

Last week was one of those weeks! I had several different projects working, while I didn’t feel overwhelmed (I had things planned out pretty well), I just couldn’t seem to get motivated. Knowing that deadlines were looming and that I had to put forth my best effort on at least two of the projects, and use my best negotiating skills on the third, I asked myself, “How can I get enthused and motivated about getting started and gettin’ ‘er done?”

The answer surfaced almost immediately, “Practice what you’ve been ‘preaching’ to audiences for the past twenty-five years.” I did, and I got ‘em done!
Was it some positive affirmation that got me moving? No!
Was it some mystic mantra that I repeated over and over? No!
Was it some inspirational story or article that I reread? No!

What I did was to practice a modified version of William James (whom many consider to be the father of modern psychology) “act as if principle” which states that in order to acquire certain traits or characteristics, we should “act as if” we already possessed them and by doing so they will become second-nature with us. As I said, I used a modified version of it. What I did was to ask myself, “If I were really motivated to do this, how would I act and what would I be doing.” Once I had a clear vision of the answers, I simply began acting out the vision of a highly motivated person. It works!
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Have We Become Anxiety Junkies?

Okay, I admit it, On week-ends I often read mysteries and thrillers to relax. A good story pulls me in without taxing my brain too much. I am not required to remember much information (I can always thumb back a couple of pages if I forget who this character is or what’s going on) and don’t usually try too hard to figure out “who dunnit” since the whole purpose of my reading is to relax my mind.

Saturday, I began reading Steve Martini’s new mystery, “Shadow of Power” and ran across the phrase, “anxiety junkies cruising for another hit.” Let me give you some background, Lawyer Paul Madriani’s good friend, Sam Arnsberg’s son is accused of murdering an attorney who is one of those talk-show talking heads and has written a best seller that has ignited racial unrest (I won’t go further, but it is an interesting yarn). Arnsberg’s son left home at seventeen after a fight with his father, drifted into a life of petty crime and fell in with a group of self-styled neo-Nazi types.

Madriani referred his old friend to two of the nation’s top criminal attorneys, both of whom refused to get involved in such a racially and politically charged case. Thus, Madriani must take the case.

Toward the end of the section introducing him to the reader, Arnsberg tells Madriani about the news reporters camped outside his house 24/7 and their intrusions into their lives, including chasing his wife down the driveway. Since the book is written in first person, we are privy to Madriani’s thoughts.

Upon hearing about the news media’s obsession with the family, his thoughts are “Breaking news is now anything on videotape that can be used to punctuate the ever-rising flood of ads. Every story, no matter what or where, is now national news. Johnny had a fight with Jimmy in the third grade, and the whole country is told about it by breathless “reporters” handing from news choppers…Unless you knew better, you might swear that Chicken Little has taken over the newsroom and bolted the door. Hyping hysteria and peddling panic around the clock…And everybody watches, anxiety junkies cruising for another hit, just in case there’s some real news.”Sure, there’s things we need to worry about, but maybe, just maybe if we stopped feeding our minds so much bad news about things we have no control over, we’d be less stressed, more effective and have much less stress.
Have a great and profitable week!
Robert Hidde
confidentliving@aol.com