Sadness, Anxiety, Habit

What is this chronic feeling of sadness and anxiety inside my chest? Is it real? Does it have a rightful place in my life? Have I earned it? By earn, I mean, has something happened to me which should illicit such never-ending sadness and have I done something regretful which deserves such inescapable anxiety?

The first reaction is to think 'Yes'. I probably ought to feel sad and I probably have reason to have anxiety. These feelings are normal and one has to learn to live with them.

But then when I stop and examine my situation, my life as it is, I find little about which to be sad. Yes there are some rooms in my mind which, when opened, let out an old ghostly sadness based on long ago memories, but I've closed the doors to these rooms and rarely choose to visit them. I also find little to cause anxiety. Yes there are the usual worries about money and health but nothing insurmountable and certainly nothing which warrants such tightness in my chest. I am taking care of myself and although I could do a better job I ought to feel a sense of security about this. Yet I don't.

Perhaps it's all just a habit. The more and more I think about problems, destructive behaviors, healthy behaviors, upbeat personalities, cynical people, disturbed individuals, successful individuals, and so on I think they have just fallen into certain habits. For some, their habits really work well for them. You can tell. For others, their habits are obviously destroying their lives and sometimes the lives of others around them. You can identify these people pretty easily too.

So, I suppose, this sadness and anxiety may just be a habit. I may have just fallen into always feeling sad and always feeling anxiety. Whether they're warranted or not makes no difference, a habit is an automatic-pilot type dynamic and ignores all reasoning which would interfere with its programming. Once the automatic-pilot is set - a habit - the only way of stopping it is by 'stopping it'!

I suppose this means I have to stop taking my chronic sadness and anxiety seriously until I'm better at distinguishing what's real and what's habit. Luckily, I think I'm doing that right now. Oh good.