I really love this part in a book by Thich Nhat Hanh where he talks about getting to the airport early. He says that sometimes his family members get upset because they want to spend more time with him, but he does not like the feeling of being rushed or anxious, so he always leaves early and gets to the airport well ahead of time.
I really resonate with that.
But I was thinking today, through a conversation with a client, about the paradox hidden inside of this kind of strategy. And I think the paradox matters because many of us are trying to reduce anxiety through efficiency, but sometimes the attempt to avoid stress quietly becomes another form of stress.
Not always. This is important. This is not an argument against preparation, responsibility, or efficiency. We are not trying to create some simplistic dichotomy where relaxation is “good” and planning is “bad.” We are just trying to hold a little more complexity around the issue.
Because sometimes efficiency genuinely reduces suffering.
And sometimes it becomes ironic.
For example, yes, I also like getting to the airport early. But what happens if one of the kids forgot something? What happens if we actually needed another thirty minutes at the house? Suddenly, I am rushing around trying to preserve my overabundance of time at the airport.
And during that process, I lose the very thing I was trying to protect.
I do not get to wake up slowly. I do not get to enjoy my coffee. I do not get to settle into the day. I become hurried and activated in the name of avoiding hurriedness and activation.
At that point, the strategy has become almost self-defeating.
It is no longer simply a paradox. It becomes ironic. In my effort to reduce anxiety, I unnecessarily create anxiety.
I notice the exact same dynamic around skiing here in Steamboat Springs.
Since COVID, the mountain has become incredibly crowded. If you do not get to Meadows parking by around 9:30 on a weekend day, everything changes. You end up in overflow parking, which can become a logistical mess. You may not even find a spot. The buses are trying to coordinate between multiple overflow locations. The gondola line gets long. The snow gets skied off.
The whole day begins to organize itself around delay, congestion, and inefficiency.
So every weekend morning there is this subtle rush. This pressure. This feeling that I need to move quickly now in order to eventually relax later.
And to be fair, there is truth in that calculation. Sometimes preparation really does prevent chaos. Sometimes the environment itself genuinely requires planning.
But what I am realizing is that there are moments when the healthiest response to stress is not better efficiencying — yes, that is a made-up word, but it works — but the willingness to stop organizing our lives around the stressor entirely.
Sometimes the answer is not becoming more effective at managing the obstacle.
Sometimes the answer is stepping outside of the system the obstacle created.
Meaning there are mornings where the deeper wisdom might be:
I had too hard of a week.
I am already overly activated.
I already have a tendency to turn recreation into performance and optimization.
And because of that, the healthiest thing might not be rushing out the door to beat the parking lot. It might be letting skiing go for the day entirely.
Not as defeat.
Not as avoidance.
But as recognition.
As the awareness that rest sometimes asks us to relinquish the activity we were trying so hard to enjoy.
There is a strange maturity in recognizing when our solutions have started reproducing the very state we are trying to escape.
Because anxiety can make us believe that relief exists one successful maneuver away. One earlier alarm clock. One more optimized routine. One better strategy.
But sometimes relief begins the moment we stop organizing ourselves around the demand altogether.
