You might think that one like myself who is well accustomed to chopping off creeping tendrils of anxiety would be better prepared for the effects of a pandemic combined with war in Ukraine on top of autocratic suppression of freedom in the far and near east while past insurrection at home is being revisited, inflation is revived, and the supreme Law of the Land is at risk of being regularly reinterpreted with the winds of political expediency.
Not so. I too am affected; I too am caught off guard by worries escaping into self-sustaining endocrinic cascades of stressfulness.
Some will say we have no need to worry about the pandemic because eventually everyone will be either immune or dead (other than those living with long-term impairments). Similarly for foreign wars: dead, disabled, or living in some form of temporary peace. As for inflation, never in history has this country seen inflation in the 50% or 110% range so far nor have we yet experienced a period of serious inflation which lasted as long as the probable remainder of my life. So things will surely change: A new and different disease will threaten, war will break out in different lands, a new and Greater Depression may well succeed the present tribulations of inflationary economic conditions. Why worry?
As I have said before (on 2022/05/09 at 11:32) this is what worry is for: To pay attention and identify alternatives. So the underlying worry is not unmitigated evil.
Still judicious pruning is in order. Else may the creeper of anxiety overrun the walls of the edifice and block the doors and reach into the chimney and catch fire and burn the place to the ground. Kept in its place the woodbine is a beautiful plant -- as is the wild grape and even the American ivy -- but run rampant they result in rueful resignation, paralysis of purpose, and in the end conflagrant flames of fiery fallacy.