Dear Mima37:

Imagine a person with a good childhood behind him or her, a loving, safe home and loving current relationship with her parents and siblings as an adult, looking forward at this time  for a lovely Thanksgiving 2018. An adult woman with a good history, good relationships, plus a  husband and children in a loving home. You would imagine there would  be no anxiety for such a woman, correct?

But there is, because as humans, we are the  only animals who know (when healthy and well) that we will die. We don’t  know when and how. And to add to it, we know that our children and everyone we know will also die. We just don’t know when and how.

This in itself is enough to cause anxiety, and it does. Even the richest person in the world, living  in a castle, seeing income of millions and even billions every year, when that person goes to bed at night, after a day  of fancy dining and golfing and what not,  she or he knows that tomorrow may never be, that there is nothing at all she can do- nothing that money can  do- to prevent this reality of death.

This is why anxiety is the human condition. Add to it the commonality of aggression, starting in the childhood home, and no wonder anxiety is such  a huge problem.

There is a way to relax best we can into this reality. To do  our best to promote our safety and that of those we have power over, our children, and at the same time, relax best we can into the reality of death. It is somewhat of a good feeling in me knowing that whatever distress I experience will not last forever. What misery it would have been to experience distress forever more. It is called hell, that idea. It is a good thing there will be an end to pain.

And yet, the fear remains, in me. I don’t expect it to go away. I wished it will my whole life, living a fear-free life (this is the idea of heaven, a fear-free forever living), but it is impossible for me as it is impossible for any and every human able to think. Because if we are able to think, we can’t ignore the reality of death.

And so we are in this together, as I type to you now, as you read this, anyone reading this, every single person, all in the same boat.

anita