10 Anxieties I Don’t Have Time For In 2016

2015 was a stressful year for all of us. I know that I personally went from “oh hey, I have a gray hair” to “oh hey, WHY DO I HAVE THIS MANY GRAY HAIRS AT TWENTY-FOUR?!”

There’s just so much out there to worry about.

Bats.

Sentient appliances.

Weak wi-fi signals.

But I think 2016 should be a whole new year. After all, you can’t grab life by the horns if you’re worried that those horns seem pretty sharp and maybe you should have just worn gloves to be safe. That’s why I’ve made a list of anxieties I absolutely do NOT have time for in 2016. Read on, and then (pretty please!) add your own!

 

Why they haven’t responded to my last text: Did something happen to them? Maybe they were in some sort of terrible accident and they’re trying desperately to type out a message but they can’t reach their phone because their arms are pinned down. Or WORSE… they secretly hate me. In 2015, those would’ve been the only two plausible reasons they wouldn’t have texted me back after ten minutes. But “new year, new me,” so I’ll be trying to leave that text stress in the past (they’re probably just walking their dog).

That I might have been out sick during the one day of high school where they tell everyone how to make sure they accomplish all their dreams: Seriously, if this happened, that would mean everyone other than me had a leg-up, except for anyone else who was out sick that day. But don’t tell me if it happens. I’d rather just worry about being less sick.

That someone might spoil one of the fifty TV shows I say I’ll eventually get around to watching but I almost certainly will never actually get around to watching: These emergency earplugs have been weighing down my pockets for too long. I have to accept I won’t be able to watch everything, especially since there’s a whole Cumber-batch of new shows every season. And I know that when I do decide to stop worrying about spoilers for a certain show, I feel a certain meditative comfort of letting go. I’d like to feel more of that. Plus, Game of Thrones is totally going to ditch the books’ plot line, so now readers can’t spoil anything for me.

That the people I’ve stalked on Facebook will find out: Facebook isn’t legally allowed to tell other users about this, right? I know that Facebook will perform experiments on their users (in fact, I once wrote an article about it) but an experiment where they let other users know who has been stalking their profiles would be cruel in a way never before imagined by humankind. I’ll just have to continue putting my full trust in Facebook, whether or not they deserve it.

Whether I’ll have time to see all the Oscar nominees: I’ve only seen, like, three of them! And really, that’s speculation, since they haven’t released the list of nominees yet. I don’t even try and watch all the Emmy nominations since there literally are not enough hours in the year to watch all of the television, but how can I consider myself a sophisticated member of society if I haven’t seen every single movie we’ve somewhat arbitrarily determined to have value? As with the rest, I suppose I’ll just have to let it- WAIT I JUST REMEMBERED I HAVEN’T EVEN SEEN FROZEN YET

That I will ruin a song by playing it too many times: Obviously, there are two solutions to this. One would be to play the song less. Given that I’m not going to say goodbye to Hello, I’ll just have to tell myself I’m still enjoying a song even when I can’t stand it anymore. That seems healthy, right?

That it’ll turn out my life is a dream and I wake up as a baby and have to redo everything: This would be a major bummer. I won’t lie, it might seem nice to occasionally get to be a kid again, but as a whole, it’s way better being an adult. You actually get to have control of your life. And sure, if I got to redo everything, I could theoretically fix stuff I had gotten wrong, but I would probably worry about whether things were better the original way. Then I’d just be having anxiety across two timelines like some sort of stressed out Time Lord. Anywho, this is an unlikely scenario, so… onwards!

That I will miss every plane flight I need to take and also somehow miss flights I’ve already taken, retroactively: Missing every plane flight going forward would be a big deal, but I could just start taking the bus if I knew it was going to happen. But somehow suddenly missing every flight I’ve already taken retroactively due to an evil, stressed out time traveler or something? That would be a HUGE deal. It would mean I would have missed the flight I took to go to college! So now would my whole education just be mystically undone? Certainly you can see why this is something worth worrying about, but it’s a new year, so NO MORE FEAR, I SAY.

That I’m forgetting about an anxiety I should be worried about: Seriously, give me a heads up in the comments if I’m forgetting something. If I’m not worrying about all the possible worries, how will I make sure to come across as vaguely uncomfortable at all times? Oh well, it’s 2016! I can just find new reasons to come across as vaguely uncomfortable.

That the world is going to end due to a meteor that has a super volcano in the middle of it: I’m pretty sure I read an article online that said we’re due for one of these. Now that I’m thinking about it, I would probably feel a lot less stressed if I just stopped reading articles on the Internet. Other than the work of the wonderful writers here on SparkLife, of course. That didn’t come across as too prideful, did it? I’m kind of anxious I might already be coming across as too prideful this year…

What anxieties are not worth your time?