As I was tanking up last night, I was thinking about how it is really hard to take some people seriously, given their behaviour. This came to mind because a few days earlier I had read an article about a survey that had found that around two thirds of Gen-Zers suffer from "refuel anxiety" - where they feared having to refill their car, and would actively avoid doing it because,
young drivers reported fears over parking close enough to the pump, identifying the correct type of fuel, or competently operating the petrol nozzle. Researchers said the stem of the worries related to fear of making a mistake in public.
Much confident.
The problem with feigning competence and confidence, is that in reality, you know your incapabilities and that will of course make you feel anxious, especially in public, where there is the fear of being discovered. And while this survey is far from scientific, I think that it does point to the actual cause of the majority of the anxiety that people feel, in all age groups, but especially in the younger cohorts.
Imposter syndrome.
With all that social media time spent creating a digital persona that is detached from reality, it is "only natural" that people will increasingly feel disconnected from themselves. Even when they look in the mirror in the morning, the face they see is not the face that is in the perfect pose, with the perfect filter, blemish and wrinkle free. They are divorced from their own image, and the reality is nowhere close as good as the fantasy world they have carefully manicured for society.
No wonder they are distressed.
From the survey, one quarter of the younger drivers with "refuel anxiety" said they avoided filling up for so long, their car ran out of gas. As far as embarrassment goes, that is like having a fear of using public toilets, so shitting in your pants instead. It is far, far more of an issue.
But again, many people will defend all of the anxiety because "life is harder now", but they don't recognise what lays at the core. Yes, stress and trauma are the main culprits, but no one seems to question the level of stress and trauma required to evoke anxiety to the point it is an issue. Everyone feels some level of anxiety, but at what level is the discomfort high enough to make basic life tasks difficult to impossible?
Everyone is different when it comes to how we react to experience, but we should at least understand that our baseline is not far from the average for the majority of us. At least in potential. This means that we should recognise that at least when it comes to these daily tasks, if everyone else is able to do it, I can do it too. And if it makes me anxious, then I need to work out how to get the fuck over it.
Learn to live in discomfort.
The more you avoid discomfort, the more you will experience it. That is not some pithy zen proverb, it is just the reality of experience. The more we protect ourselves, the softer we get. The more we stretch, the more flexible, The more we push, the stronger. And, anybody and everybody has the potential to improve their strength across the entire domain of their self - whether body, mind or emotional resilience. But, it is always uncomfortable, often difficult, and rarely fast.
Personal development takes time, which points to another issue that has been on the incline - instant gratification. It has been growing for decades, but in the on-demand culture, where people are constantly demanding and expecting everything they want to be instantly available, with the digital servings coming at literal lightspeed, impatience runs rife. As does the inability to invest oneself for a future return that may never come. It is all about now.
And now...
There are a lot of anxious people unable to perform the simplest of tasks without hyperventilating.
Taraz
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