People do it all the time . . .

I constantly find myself running up against the same barrier: doing stuff. Shocking, yes, but true. Whenever I encounter something new, I am almost paralyzed by a sense of uneasiness: "But how can I do this? What do I do? Where do I go?" In planning this SF trip, Jill and I have come across many unforeseen or unfamiliar issues, and whenever that happens, I am gripped by fear and worry and panic. How do you sublet an apartment? How do you find a sublet? What about all our stuff? What about connections with friends? What about our mail?

In fact, when Jill and I were talking with our potential/probable subletters, the conversation turned to how they would pay us on a monthly basis. Should they just write us a check and mail it to SF? Or maybe they could set up a Pay Pal account and transfer the money to us that way? I began wrestling with the specifics of each case, the pros and cons, before saying what I always say in these situations: "Eh, it'll work out -- after all, people do it all the time."

People do it all the time. It's my saving grace, my mantra, my shining eternal truth. I can handle anything because, after all, people have done this before, and they were just like I am now. Looked at in that way, to hold on to my anxiety is sheer egotism. It is to say, "Sure, other did this and handled it just fine, but me, I'm different, and this minor uncertainty is ground for a national emergency!" I really don't want to live in such an unbalanced and obstinate matter. It's tiring to always be walking uphill. So unless I am setting out to do something truly unique, like passing through the time-space continuum or communing with the dead, I am comforted, buoyed, propped up, and emboldened by the knowledge that it can't be that hard because people do it all the time.