Friday, January 2, 2026
First real day back at work after the holidays and I'm already drowning. The project deadline didn't move while I was eating cookies and pretending to be present with my family. Now it's staring at me like I personally offended it. January 15th. Thirteen days. And I'm maybe 40% done.
I tried that thing from yesterday - asking myself "Is this within my control?" every time I started spiraling. The answer was usually complicated. Can I control the deadline? No. Can I control whether I work on it? Yes. Can I control whether it's good enough? Sort of. Can I control whether my boss likes it? Absolutely not.
The worst part is the physical sensation. Tight chest, shallow breathing, this constant low-grade nausea. My body is having a full crisis response to... a spreadsheet. A presentation. Things that, realistically, will not kill me. My brain knows this. My nervous system apparently didn't get the memo.
I spent three hours this afternoon staring at my screen, paralyzed. Opened the document, closed it. Checked email. Opened it again. Made a single edit. Checked Slack. The anxiety about not doing the work was making me unable to do the work. It's like being afraid of drowning and then refusing to swim.
By 6 PM, I forced myself to make a list. Just the next three things I needed to do. Not the whole project. Just three things. I got one of them done before I left. One. But that's more than zero, right?
Stoic AF Response
Generated at 9:34 PM
"It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it."
Let me get this straight: you're anxious about a deadline, and your response to that anxiety is... to not work on the thing? Bold strategy. Also, extremely human. You're not broken. You're just experiencing what happens when the fight-or-flight system meets a Google Doc.
Here's what you did right (and I need you to actually hear this): You noticed the paralysis. You made a list. You completed one thing. That's not failure - that's breaking the loop. The Stoics called this "the obstacle is the way." You couldn't do the whole project, so you did what you could. That's literally the only option any of us ever has.
Now, about that body stuff - the tight chest, the shallow breathing. That's your ancient lizard brain treating a deadline like a saber-toothed tiger. It's wrong, but it's trying to protect you. Epictetus would tell you that your body's reaction is not within your control, but your response to it is. Try this: when the chest tightens, take three breaths so slow they'd bore a sloth. Don't try to stop the anxiety. Just... outlast it.
Tomorrow, before opening any work, write down the three smallest possible next steps. Not goals. Not outcomes. Just the literal next actions. "Open document" counts. "Write one sentence" counts. Make it so easy you'd feel silly not doing it.