Different Approaches To Deal With Anxiety

Josef Pieper was a German philosopher, who is known for his book Leisure The Basis of Culture. The main theme of his book is to find the true meaning of what leisure or free time is. Throughout the entirety of his book, Pieper provides the reader with examples of how you can find leisure in your life and free yourself from the chaos that is going on in your life. A great example of this is when Pieper states “ Leisure, it must be clearly understood, is a mental and spiritual attitude- it is not simply the result of external factors, it is not the inevitable result of spare time, a holiday, a weekend or a vacation.” (Pieper, 46). In this quote, Josef Pieper is saying that leisure comes internally from mentally and spiritually freeing your mind. The external factors of spare time, a holiday, a weekend, or a vacation will not play a key role in bringing leisure to oneself. Leisure will follow when one’s inner self has an attitude of no activity. We should view the true gratification of leisure as a present. A present is a thing that can sometimes be overlooked in a community where things must be earned. Considering that the most crucial things in life are beyond on reach, we cannot attain a right to obtain them. Through this technique, we are proficient to notice that life is larger than what we can accomplish from our work and we can grant our life its full meaning.

If one was able to listen to a conversation between Sigmund Freud, Viktor E. Frankl, and Josef Pieper they would be astonished to hear what these three men have to say about the cause of anxiety and how to deal with it. When talking about diagnosing the cause of anxiety, I believe that Freud and Frankl will both have a similar argument, while on the other hand, Pieper’s view will differ. Although Freud and Frankl’s arguments both deal with anxiety coming events in the past, they are not the same. Freud states that events during one’s childhood have an impact on adult lives. For example, if someone was growing up and they got into an accident, they will have anxiety when they are in a similar situation. Due to the limitless power of the mind, stress and anxiety are unavoidable. On the other hand, Viktor Frankl has a similar argument. He believes that anxiety comes from events that happened in the past at any time to a person. An example of this could be if someone went on a date with a significant other and they were nervous about it, there is a good chance that the next time this happens the anxiety will occur again. In contrast, Josef Pieper believes that anxiety comes from working too hard and not allowing ourselves to have a break from reality. For instance, a college student who studies hard in school is constantly doing school work and preparing for exams. They often don’t find leisure because they are often studying, which brings anxiety to them. To cope with anxiety, these scholars came up with their own proposals to try to avoid it. For Sigmund Freud, he believed that the healthiest way to deal with anxiety is through sublimation. When one goes through sublimation, they divide their time into different tasks. I can relate to this because being a college student I get stressed out a lot and like to divide my day into different tasks. My favorite example of this is time management. For instance, in college, there are a lot of due dates and it is about getting your work in on time, so to avoid stress, I like to write things down on a planner so that I am on top of things and can physically see when things are due. In the opinion of Frankl, one should use the techniques of paradoxical intention and deflection. Although these techniques take different approaches to deal with the anxiety they will both get rid of your anxiety and stress in precise time. Finally, Pieper uses the strategies of finding leisure to relax through doing activities such as meditation or taking a nap. During these states, one will be able to free their mind and have free time. I can relate to this because whenever I am stressed out I like to meditate and wind down because it clears my mind and allows me to recoup into my natural self.

In conclusion, anxiety impacts the production level of several college students in the world today. Of course, there are many different ways of dealing with anxiety in the modern world, especially with advancements in medicine, but the different techniques that Sigmund Freud, Viktor E. Frankl, and Josef Pieper gave society will have important roles in helping one dealing with anxiety. What is your way of dealing with anxiety?