Each decision is made with imperfect information, and the fear of making a less than perfect choice can materialize as anxiety. I experience this on a daily basis, but a recent situation in which I feared for my life brought into clearer focus my anxiety and the tools that I have to mitigate it.
This summer, I spent ten days in the Sierra Mountains of California. The past winter had been the highest snowfall on record, and this made hiking conditions dangerous. One evening as the sun was setting, my friend Becca and I came across a river that was wide, deep, and fast from the day’s snowmelt. We tried to find a safe place to cross, but after half an hour, we had only made it partway across to an island. For the remaining thirty feet, I couldn’t tell how deep the river was, and fear tightened in my chest as we discussed options in the fading light. Becca proposed that we try crossing with linked arms, but after a few steps, the water rushed powerfully above our waists. Our bodies shook from fighting the river, and our feet and poles started to lose purchase on the rocks below. It looked like we were both going to get swept into the whitewater, but we were able to support each other in turning back to safety. Just as darkness set in, we made camp, wet and exhausted.
I did not sleep that night. As I lay in my tent listening to the roar of the river, I experienced a pure form of my everyday anxiety. I was haunted by what I didn’t know of the river, like the depth of its center and if its anger would lessen after a night without snowmelt. My mind swirled with terrible visions of being swept away. I raced from option to option without gaining any clarity. Should I turn around and walk the thirty snowy miles back to where I started? Should we search further upstream for a log or easier ford?
Since returning home, thinking of the river has helped me to put everyday worries in perspective. My anxiety is still real, but the more minor nature of daily worries gives me the space I need to be mindful in how I face them. In the film Stutz, the featured psychotherapist Dr. Phil Stutz explains the power of simply acknowledging that uncertainty is an unavoidable part of life that can cause pain. Personally, I often feel anxious about the unknowns associated with romantic relationships. I try to be mindful of the inherent uncertainty of one’s compatibility with another person. Little by little, you learn and reassess, in the same way that you discover the depth of an unknown river with each footstep.
I often fixate almost exclusively on the failure case, rather than keeping success in mind. There is terror in thinking only of being swept away by the river, but joy in considering the triumph of reaching the other side. In personal life, when hosting an event, I can be consumed by the fear that no one will show up, but when I instead try to envision my happiness in seeing my favorite people together, my anxiety in planning is more manageable.
In trying to make a big decision, I can sometimes flit from considering one option to another without making progress. This is for example true of evaluating the next move in my career, where I put pressure on myself to find a perfect option. In the book Thinking in Bets, the author explains that all decisions are a bet given imperfect information. She discourages resulting, which is evaluating the quality of a decision based on the outcome. Attempting a river crossing was not a bad idea just because you had to turn back. This mindfulness can make decisions less anxiety-inducing, as rather than attempting to ensure a perfect outcome, I try to make the best decision I can with the information available at the time.
Becca and I rose before dawn the day after our failed attempt. In darkness, we put on wet clothes and resolved to try the same crossing with less snowmelt. I still could not see the bottom of the river, but I could tell its power had been somewhat lessened by the night. We each put one foot in front of the other, and the water again rose above our waists. This time, we pushed past the center, and when I emerged on the other side, I let out a primal howl, shedding the night’s terrors. There would be more crossings like that one, but with each, I grew in mindfulness rather than anxiety.
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Lastly, for your viewing pleasure, my assessment of one river I had to cross.