The more you organize your life around not addressing the things that make you anxious, the more likely they are to develop into serious problems – and even if they don’t, the longer you fail to confront them, the more unhappy time you spend being scared of what might be lurking in the places you don’t want to go. It’s ironic that this is known, in self-help circles, as ‘remaining in your comfort zone,’ because there’s nothing comfortable about it. In fact, it entails accepting a constant background tug of discomfort – an undertow of worry that can sometimes feel useful or virtuous, though it
...more
