At the end of January, I had an epiphany.

Kim and I were sitting in the living room one evening, relaxed in our easy chairs, both reading books. All four of our beasts were nestled nearby. The house was quiet. For the first time in forever, I felt completely content.

For maybe twenty minutes, I paused what I was doing and simply savored the moment. I stopped. I looked around. I made time to be present in the Now.

This article is really helping me cope with my anxiety as of late.

I think the expectations I place on myself are too high.

Planning for forever is essentially impossible, which can actually be freeing: It brings you back into the present. How long will this pandemic last? Right now, that’s irrelevant; what matters is eating a nourishing meal, telling someone you love them, walking your dog, getting enough sleep. What matters is that, to the degree you can, you make your own life sustainable every day.

If you examine your life, you’ll find that you do a lot of things to simply manage stress. In fact, I believe that for most of us, that’s all that we do.

It’s been a tough year on many fronts, and I know the general crux of this article is very important, but I thought this point about stress was very poignant.

Self-control and stress are inextricably linked. If you feel like life is out of control, once you are placed in a stressful situation, you’ll do bad things to alleviate that stress.

My mindset has always been that life is a series of things you Have To Get Right or face the consequences of being a Big Failure. That has led me to put immense pressure myself and on many of my individual decisions, including minor ones. As a consequence, I ended up with unreasonably high expectations for myself and others.

My neck hurts from nodding along so aggressively with this self-analysis.

This article has some solid advice if your neck hurts too.