Anxiety
Staring At A Blank Page
A lot of burgeoning writers feel menaced by the blank page, they sit there paralyzed, unsure of how to proceed. But once you’ve gone through the process a couple of thousand times it’s really no big deal. Sure, there might be some curiosity, even uncertainty, around how the thing’s actually going to turn out but there’s little anxiety attached because all of those previous successful outcomes act as a sort of unconscious guarantee that everything’s going to turn out just fine.
The anxiety engendered when staring at a blank page is just one more example of the psychological reality that many of the threats in our environment are perceived not real, these threats only exist in our heads, and therefore the resulting paralyzing thoughts and emotions that keep us from acting are completely unnecessary.
One of the keys if you are just starting out at any endeavor and feel gripped by that paralyzing anxiety is to let go of any expectations about the result and instead focus all your attention on the process. If you do the best you can, the best you’re capable of at this point in your development, you’ll be able to count your try as a success even though you’ll probably look back on your efforts as not all that great as time goes by due to the nature of self-actualization with its constant unfolding of potentialities and powers.
What matters is movement, not a perfect result. There’s no such thing as a perfect result actually. Masters in just about any field will tell you they’re still moving along their personal continuum and notice their constant improvement, even if no one else can. Movement and paralyzing anxiety are obviously incompatible with one another and this is why like we said the best attitude is to come fully to the moment and throw yourself into the your endeavor without any judgments, which is a state of mind where anxiety holds very little sway.
