The Benefits of Anxiety
And Why It Might Actually Be Your Superpower
It was the last thing I wanted to do, but I signed up for it anyway: to read some of my writing in front of an audience. I was so anxious about it, so afraid that I might freeze while in front of everybody, that I might panic and cut my reading short so I could be anxious in solitude, that I practiced immensely. I read and reread my piece aloud to myself. I cut words I stumbled on. I shortened the superfluous. I practiced some more. And when it came time for me to get up in front of a big group of people to read my own writing — I didn’t trip up on a single word. Not for three minutes.
It took until I sat back down in my chair afterward, hands shaking, adrenaline still coursing through my veins, thick like syrup, that I realized I had done it without messing up at all.
How could I have done this well on something I was so anxious about?
The answer lies within the question. My anxiety made me prepare to nearly a point of excess. I practiced until it would be harder to fail than to succeed. And then I did it: I delivered. I read my secret writings, my vulnerable words, and I did it in front of writers and teachers and academics. A nightmare if you ask an anxious person.
