Anxious Times

I was reading an article the other day about childhood and how it is such an anxious time for kids as they navigate their way through the early years of life. Let's be honest, even as we so-called adults often look back on those times as the "good old days," the fact is none of those years are easy. For children, they enter into each of their days feeling inadequate on some level and, consequently, at least a little afraid. (Do those deep feelings ever completely go away for any of us?) Despite that, the great majority of youngsters not only make it into adulthood, but they actually turnout to be pretty decent people. Whew.

But just because they are adults, it does not mean their lives are free of anxiety. If anything, reasons for anxious feelings become deeper because, in part, as adults more people are affected by our behavior - good or bad. We deal with others on the job, in our neighborhoods, within our families, and, indirectly, within society itself. Each day, every adult carries a lot on their shoulders just as they did when they were young. Thus, the question, from a communication standpoint, is how communicating can be carried out in a way that best eases the anxiety that all of us share.

The first part of the answer to such a fundamental question is that no matter how well one does communicate, feelings of anxiousness will never go away. All of us will never stop having moments of self-doubt or inadequacy. This is why the primary component parts of communicating must be honesty and compassion. Whether we are on the receiving end of an act of communicating or the one who is doing the communicating, for communication to be most effective it is essential that no purposeful deception occur and that the circumstance of others be taken into consideration. As all of us are insecure, we need all the help we can get if we are to successful interact with others. And that help must come from each of us.