Lately, I feel like I’ve been parts of conversations that seem to focus on how many seem to be dealing with anxiety. Maybe the world’s a little more anxious, or maybe folks are just being more open with talking about it. But either way, the conversations sometimes turn to me with a “hey, Tim, do you ever feel anxious?”
And I say “normally, no”
Then the last 14–15 months happened.
Let’s backtrack, my life is a little bit of everything, I keep a busy schedule, and try to be involved with as much as I can. About 15 months ago or so, about midday, it sort of hit me “where is all of this going? All of this feels really really uncertain”. I was on the way to donate blood, and when they took my blood pressure they told me “Tim, you’re normally relaxed, what is happening?” It was the uncertainty, it was all of the “what is next?” or even a “for who, for what?” And for the first time, I legitimately felt anxious. It could have been my workload, it could have been, because, in my world, when working in TV or film business, there is so much “hurry up and wait” or “hey this is going to happen…wait, no it’s not”, it could have been that I was spreading myself too thin, maybe I was skipping too much sleep, it could be the news of the world, and the news sometimes, is really dark and sad and is coming at us fast and furious 24/7, either way, feeling uncertain is not fun. Feeling anxious, was also… no fun.
Then I had an idea.
For the next 12 months, I will say “yes” to anything that made sense, I will accept ANY and EVERY meeting request, I was going to take this feeling of “uncertainty” head on.
Was it was going to make life feel more or less uncertain? Who knows, but I was going to jump in and swim. (note from the author: this may not be a good idea for everyone, I’m not so sure it was even a good idea for me.)
First thing I did? I got one of my soccer coaching licenses, and that immediately turned into me joining a clinic run by a major global soccer team, we taught kids, I met great people from all over the world, and a fellow coach from England said “Timmy your energy is OUTRAGEOUS, we need to work together more”. This doesn’t sound as cool written down, it sounded MUCH more fun with an English accent. (note from the author: Many things sound much cooler with a British accent, however, curse words sound cooler in Spanish. Ever hear curse words in Spanish? It flows like a fine wine.)
Playing soccer, meeting cool international people? Why didn’t I do all this “yes” stuff sooner?
Then I wanted to get involved and try and help out our military veterans, I was able to have a meeting almost immediately, and was able to be put in a situation to do my part. I was not only able to work with people in our military, I was able to hand out awards too! This “yes to everything” idea was COOKING.
I kept taking every meeting…but they weren’t all good ones.
One, I thought was for some charity work, I went in and sat down….and uh oh, that wasn’t charity deeds, that “community communication” opportunity was one of those door to door sales jobs. (note from the author: I normally I have a pretty good BS detector, credit where it was due, this place got me good) When I called them out on the misleading “community communication” role, they said, “well yes, you walk around the community and you speak”, well played, shady-business-that-I-thought-was-something-cooler, well played.
Then there was another meeting, I said “yes” to it, because, hey, that’s what I was doing. It was this global organization for solar power, it was in New Jersey.
Now, I love New Jersey, I married a Jersey Girl, I feel like Jersey pizza is the most underrated thing on the planet, right after grocery store brand spaghetti and meatballs in a can… (note from the author: try this. Not the name brand. Acme brand, Shoprite Brand, whatever brand spaghetti and meatballs in a can, low key fantastic. See? This is what I do here. Talk life and canned spaghetti)
Look at this beautiful thing.
…but as much as I love New Jersey, there are many roads there and sort of lead to nowhere. I’ve never seen anything like that anywhere else. Those roads to nowhere were a metaphor for that global solar power organization, went nowhere quick. The gentleman in that meeting kept saying “I can’t believe you said ‘yes’ to this meeting, why did you say ‘yes’ to this meeting?” This was one of my MANY times I questioned my whole “yes” thing for a year.
But little by little, by saying “yes” to every meeting, by saying “yes” to every potential opportunity, I found myself feeling a little more relaxed, because I was putting myself in these new/sometimes interesting/sometimes creepy situations, and somehow, I started feeling much more positive. I was meeting so many new and unique people at an insanely rapid pace, I’d felt like I was doing interesting things with my career, but really, unexpectedly so, found myself doing a lot of “live, in person” opportunities with some really great people and audiences, which gave me some good energy and some positive vibes.
Good deeds wise, I was able to get my hands into so many causes that were involved with doing some great things for the community and that gave me a great global perspective, I also traveled around, randomly ending up in Florida for a week, spending tons of time in New York, just taking . Saying “yes” to everything had some really weird and wild moments, but some really good and unique ones too.
Now, I know, this was just me feeling a bit anxious for a small bit of time (I think they call this “situational anxiety”), I know many, many people out there have legitimate, hard wired-built in anxiety and they feel it EVERY minute of EVERY day, and to that, I say, you’re not alone, all you can do is try and do things that make YOU feel as comfortable as you can with it(in my case, I made myself as uncomfortable as I can for just a short time, but I’m not the best role model), reach out to talk, if you feel like it’ll help. I know people who do all sorts of things to keep their own anxiety down (some go for a run, some play video games, some scream into pillows), any which way, please know, you’re never alone, and only YOU may know what’s really right for you…
…and if you’re dealing with something internally, self doubt, uncertainty, anxiety, whatever, just keep pushing. It’ll fall before you do.
And if you ever need anything , I’m never too far away, if you want to eat some canned spaghetti and chat.
Wednesday, January 13, 2021 at 07:17AM 
