When somebody has no anxiety, say when they are doing a high-stakes activity, they might become careless and not pay attention to pertinent details. Anxiety has the capacity to increase our focus on the things that are important. However, when anxiety becomes too much, it takes away our capacity to focus on anything except imagining all the things that may go wrong. When we learn to have anxiety in the right quantity, we can be careful and powerful in doing the things that are important to us.

Anxiety is not inherently a bad thing. Too little anxiety can make us careless, while too much anxiety can make us powerless. Anxiety, in the right quantity, can make us careful and powerful.

Watch this content at: Anxiety – not too much nor too little

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18.35 And that determination which cannot go beyond dreaming, fearfulness, lamentation, moroseness and illusion – such unintelligent determination, O son of Pṛthā, is in the mode of darkness.