The world has been shutting down since late March of 2020 due to the spreading of Covid-19 and the resulted high rate of fatality.
Prior to the pandemic, approximately 18% of population in the United States is affected by some forms of anxiety disorders every year – the shutdown and the lock-down are exacerbated the situation.
This article is not a substitute for a professional evaluation from your family doctor – it is merely a personal documentation of my own experiences during the shutdown and lockdown because of Covid-19 pandemic.
Googling the definition of “Anxiety” resulted – a feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease, typically about an imminent event or something with an uncertain outcome.
TheEngineer’s definition of “Anxiety”:
Over the 28 years of our marriage, I have discovered that my wife and I are polar opposites when it comes to planning – the diametric slowly evolved over the span of our relationship.
Because of our antipodal view of the future events, my wife managed the day to day activities and I plan for the future events.
The resulted partition of family responsibilities has psychologically conditioned both of us to approach tomorrow with completely two difference strategies:
- My wife will wait to the next day and decide her activities as reacting to the new changes that come along with a new day.
- As for me, 70 to 90 percents of my activities for the next day have been planned and will be executed regardless of what will come with a new day.
Two major events that transformed our life trajectory came into reality in the last 8 years:
- We summited our Financial Independent target in 2012.
- Slowly and surely, the empty-nesting process is happening since 2017.
The first event had a greater psychological impact on me since I am the main breadwinner in the family. Crossing the FI mile marker gave me additional times to fulfill the responsibilities that have been embracing since day one of our marriage – moreover, I am belonging to the Generation X that still has the mindset with regard to the welfare of my aging parents.
Prior to the Covid-19, I have never psychologically experienced anything remotely closed to the definition of “Anxiety” as defined above – all due to the definition of the responsibilities I have whole heartedly embraced as a son to my parents, a husband to my wife, a father to my daughter and a brother to my younger siblings.
I am introducing another psychological experience, “Frustration”, because in many circumstances the strategies that have the efficacy in alleviating “Anxiety” resulted in “Frustration”.
Googling the definition of “Frustration” resulted – the feeling of being upset or annoyed, especially because of inability to change or achieve something.
With all the responsibilities – I have experienced countless frustration instances. The fact that I did not experienced the feeling of anxious because I always have fixated targets to be address tomorrow and the days follow.
The empty-nesting event placed a greater psychological impact on my wife – the dependency of a helpless child on a mother becomes an internal void when our daughter was taking solid steps away from years of investment in caring and protection.
For the last few years, I have noticed that my wife exhibited behaviors that inline with the definition of “Anxiety” – notably when we have an empty day without any planned events.
Surprisingly, as the world economy is shutting down since March in concert with the United States lockdown to ward-off the spreading the of the Covid-19 pandemic – I have personally experienced short yet clear episodes of anxiety – a totally new psychological experience.
I am going to visually illustrate “Frustration”, a psychological experience I have countless of times encountered over the years – VS “Anxiety” my wife has experienced over the years and now I tasted it during Covid-19 lock-down.
Let’s say you are asked to look out the window of your home (top illustration) and into the busiest floating market in Vietnam (Cai Rang). Your job is to plan dinner for the entire month.
A planner as myself – will look out the window at the beginning of the month and pick out all the ingredients and plan what to cook for family for the duration of 1 month. For the next 30 days, I have no need to look out the window again, since I already have planned of what to buy and cook every day.
The only challenge I will face for the entire month is the “Frustration” in locating the ingredients as the floating market is fluid in comparison to the modern supermarkets.
In the second illustration, no dinner can be planned because the window to the available ingredients is not clear – regardless if you are long term, short term, or day to day planner. Hence, my first brush of experience with “Anxiety”.
Since the lockdown, all my targets for 2021 are so unclear that I was not able to plan for greater than 50% of probabilistic for execution. I have lost appetite few days and worst of all few nights of 7 hours of solid sleep – very rare events as my wife always told “I am a heavy sleeper”.
As stated above, my wife has experienced anxiety long before the pandemic and I often managed to help her by throwing up unplanned “event”, a target, the next day for her to fixate – this strategy is highly effective in calming her anxiousness.
Prior to FI, my day to day activities are 95% structured. As soon as I crossed the FI mile marker, the percentage dropped to 50%. Within 4 years, I was able to get the percentage back up to 85% with the appropriate targets.
As the world is preparing to shut down in late March, I was able to maintain the 85% planned structure by followed my own advice “Humanity – What To Do With The Coronavirus Pandemic”.
I allocated a substantial amount of time from the planned events that are not longer possible for execution with the pending global shutdown – into realigning personal investments to match with the financial target – the trigger is loaded, it is now becoming a waiting game.
My brush with anxiety from the worldwide shutdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the experiences with the support of my wife manages her anxiety – I have gained the following insight into this common and elusive psychological condition.
For the general population, the target is required to be located in the morning of the coming day. The remaining small and highly competitive populace, the targets are placed further into the future. In all cases, short or long term targets must make sense to the individuals’ brains.
Without the tangible targets, the brains run wild – leading to the psychological conditions of anxiousness.
Covid-19 is here and the global end to end solution will not be in full implementation until 2021.
If you are not a member of the front line healthcare heroes, you can be part of this end to end solution by keeping yourself physically and mentally healthy – structure your days with activities (brains’ targets) and execute on them.
The limited of choices may result in boredom and frustration – but knowing this, boredom and frustration are healthier than anxiousness.
You will have an opportunity to live your best life when the Covid-19 pandemic is cornered by the best of humanity.
Let’s play the game of life!
