COLUMN: A growing and popular emotion

“Be my burden, Christ, I’m certain I’m already down. I’m not ever quite together. I’m not sorted out.”

The Connells, “Burden,” 1993

During my time at Northeastern Junior College in Sterling, Colorado, our communications class instructor took us on a field trip. He scheduled a day for us, about 16 of us, to observe a noon broadcast at one of the Denver television stations. The broadcast was 30 minutes long and we watched the prep time before and what happened during commercial breaks.

The part I still remember today was the question-and-answer we had with the two broadcasters after the newscast ended. One of them was asked by a student if they got nervous before they went on air. The woman of the two-person team said she did and has been nervous before going live for much of her career. She said being nervous was a good thing as she thought it showed she cared about what she did. The mornings were spent writing their script updating on what was on the night before and what had happened that morning. I understood her answer.

And I also know what she feels like 30 years later.

I still get nervous before we send our pages to the press or post a big, breaking story on our website and social media pages during other times of the day. “Is it right? Is it right enough for people to accept it.” I have the same reason as she. I care.

I won’t deny we have goofed before. I will never say the Creston News Advertiser will be a perfect paper. I appreciate our readers who continue to follow and rely on us knowing we still have the occasional typo or grammatical slip. I took a phone call last week from an out-of-state reader who told me he enjoyed all of our work. He was very encouraging. He made my week.

Having the compliments doesn’t happen everyday. That nervousness is as close as my shadow. Nervousness these days is better called anxiety. That is related to stress. Anxiety may also be described as the feeling of uncertainity knowing we did everything we thought to do to make X right. But we are still not sure about it. Just like posting a breaking story during the day.

Anxiety is getting a lot of popularity these days, mainly from the movie “Inside Out 2.” The animated film is a sequel to a young girl who moved with her family to California from Minnesota and tried to fit into her new surroundings. The main characters of the movie are the girl’s emotions; joy, anger, sad, disgust and fear; all wonderfully depicted. The second movie, released earlier this month, added new emotions to the adolescent girl. Anxiety eventually takes the lead.

The plot was brilliant. That age in life does have its anxiety. Your body changes. Friendships may end, get weaker or get deeper, sometimes all in the same week. School gets a little more complicated in the middle school years. It easily made me remember my time then. (I enjoyed seventh grade.) Using a girl’s perspective, it was done extremely well. I remember my daughter when she was 13. I don’t want to give the story away for those of you who have not seen it yet.

I don’t want to write about a movie. I want to write about anxiety, even at the adult stage of life. There is a lot of anxiety for adults. All you have to do is pick the category of life and it’s there. Of course, the trick is how much we let it influence our lives.

Anxiety may have got its growth during COVID. We had no idea what to do since none of us have been in a global pandemic. Can we go to public places and be safe? Will kids go to school and be safe? On top of that, the COVID economy showed by the number of lost jobs.

COVID is over. Anxiety is not.

There is anxiety from people thinking if a certain person wins the November election, the country will come to an end. But it doesn’t have to be national events. Anxiety is personal. Will I get the job? Will I be able to keep the job? Will my kid’s wedding be as we planned? Will my kid’s marriage be as they want it? Am I financially stable enough to spend that much on a better car?

Most anything can cause anxiety. We can only do so much for something until that something is put to work; like watching our kid start their first job after college.We need to research and practice coping skills to better handle anxiety. It’s OK to get nervous as long as it it is not a detriment to what you want done.