We live in an Anxious World,  it surrounds and invades and defines us,  we seek it out and invite it in, it isn’t that the world is so much more dangerous than ever, it is at least partly because the ugliness, anger and cruelty  is brought to us every day and all day, on our phones, our screens, in our growing number of messages, in the news that is sold to us, in the likes and notifications, in the air we breath and the light that shines around us. Unless you live as a recluse lives, or in a bubble, life in our world is more and more the equivalent of sticking one’s finger in a light socket many times day.

If we wish to live and work on this earth, we have little choice but to enter the Anxious World and confront it  in various ways. The great spiritual challenge is how to maintain a sense of peace and renewal amidst such a pervasive sense of suffering, conflict and angst. I remember always that the Anxious World is very profitable to many of the people and institutions that shape and maintain it – politics, the media, medicine, the law, even the weather. They Anxious World is very much a corporate creation, they depend on us to be anxious, it shapes what we need buy, contribute to, argue about and wish for. It is hard to grasp the impact on or psyches by this bombardment of messages and images, we are hyper-aroused, hyper-angry, hyper-stimulated.

More and more, I see my writing and my life sometimes centers on the Anxious World and my own search for a way to live meaningfully within it. In a way, that is part of my calling, my work. Suffering and argument is brought to me every day, from our leaders to e-mails and texts, to the great outpouring of messages on Facebook or Twitter or Pinterest or Instagram, in many ways they are the global bulletin board of the Anxious World. Our heads spin with all of the images and messages we absorb, learning how to live in a nervous world is a spiritual challenge, a story of fear, suffering and renewal.

More and more, we are all anxious, I see the threat of fear in so many of the messages that come pouring across my screens each morning.

So I am increasingly conscious of this theme, I am dealing with life in the Anxious World, eager to share what I have learned, what works for me.

– I do not accept that the Anxious World is not the truth about the world, it is partial representation of it. It is not reality, it is a reality sold to anxious people for money. It is not the truth about my world it is not the world I make, live in or see. We cannot do all of the things we are frightened into doing, we have to make choices. So many things, so many messages, so many likes, so many pills, so many tests, so much money. This is our responsibility, our path to an authentic life, to peace of mind.

– In the Anxious World,  I know it is essential for me to leave time and space in this world for own sense of self, my peace of mind, my spiritual being, the only bulwark there truly is to the disturbances that swim around us like millions of tadpoles in the shallow water.

– I meditate twice a day, in the morning and at night, I am free there, away from this world, free to heal and focus on the life I want, the life I have, the life I love.

– Boundaries are desperately important  to me in the Anxious World. I say no to the phone calls I don’t want, no the e-mail I don’t wish to read, no to the angry feeds on Facebook and Twitter, no to opening my consciousness to the angry and unsettling news, no to the fearful and angry  – to the citizens of the Anxious World who live on websites, mailing lists, on Facebook. I don’t wish to go there, I won’t accept this version of the world, I won’t open my mind to the fear and anger that fuels this world.

– I balance my life. In the late afternoon and evening, I withdraw into my Wonderful World. I take a photo that lifts my heart, I read a book, I walk my dogs, I write, I love my wife, I kiss a donkey on the nose, I light a candle, I encourage a stranger, I sit and meditate, I do Tai Chi, I talk to a friend who nourishes my heart and soul. This is my precious time, my time of antidote, my time of balance and perspective. In our time, there is no escaping the Anxious World, it is there waiting for me every day, it rears its head time and again, day after day.

I am aware of it, so much of my life has been understanding it and refusing to let it define who I am. The suffering in the world does not and will not halt my own search for renewal, will not drown out my spiritual search,  that is my daily promise to myself, I am a prophet of me, I will preach the gospel of authenticity and the meaningful life.