Relax

As someone with anxiety disorder, I can honestly say that the most ignored but important teaching could to not be anxious about life. Not only does anxiety take years off your life, hypothetically speaking, but it also inhibits production. Being anxious cannot “add one cubit to [your] span of life,” but will only make your life less enjoyable. Like the lilies of the field that simply grow, we should spend our lives not caught up in work, money, and superficial things, but taking in life as it comes. We need to sit back and really analyze our lives – the way we are and why others do the things that they do. By resisting anxiety, we can come to understand the world better, for it is deeper than clothing or food. It implies that we need not be so self-sufficient when it comes to food. This taps into environmental issues, as well. Like the birds “neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns,” they still have food enough. Instead of working the land to the point where it cannot provide anymore, we should trust that what we need on this Earth can naturally be supplied for us. While I am an atheist and I don’t believe that God will supply you with what is necessary, as the teaching implies, I have to agree that solely concentrating on survival and success has led us to a very superficial culture. In today’s society, most people are so consumed with work and finance that it gets in the way of what is really important: family, ethics, etc.