One of the best things about inconvenience is that it is a stellar opportunity to check in with my old friend, anxiety. Whilst I am, by nature, an anxious frog I find myself content with the level of stress I now experience when doing day to day tasks compared to days gone by.
It’s an opportunity to see the funny side of things, an opportunity to laugh at being bumbling and unable to find the right products in an unfamiliar shop. It’s enjoyable to be able to ask a shop assistant for some help and telling them that I’ve been wandering around Big W for a couple of weeks now and water supplies are beginning to run low.
It’s fun to be able to spot other people (dads, let’s be honest) in the shop on their mobile phones looking confused whilst quietly hissing to their significant other down the phone whilst circling the ‘Back To School’ aisle for the 97th time in the last 10 minutes.
Once upon a time that would’ve been a world ender – confirmation of my inability to operate at the most basic level in the modern world. But now I find such things a breeze and an opportunity to check in with myself and remind myself of a difficult job done reasonably well over a sustained period of time.
And this is one of the things I love most about being a peer worker – the ability to sit with people in those spaces of heightened anxiety knowing that things CAN get better, but without being preachy that they definitely will. Sharing those light bulb moments with people is nauseatingly stereotypical to say I enjoy but the truth is that I do and without telling my employer, I’d try and find them for free if I weren’t lucky enough to have the job I do.