This is how I'd sum up the anxiety that sometimes drives me:
The fear of losing.
I get the feeling that some events in life are like a game, a competition.
You have to "succeed", "win", "pass" or at least "not lose".
You feel watched. Without knowing by whom.
There's a judge somewhere, a referee. Maybe also people you might disappoint if things didn't work out.
So you plan ahead. You prepare. You do everything to measure up.
Problem: you don't know the rules.
You don't even know what "winning" would look like.
So you focus on the only thing left: not losing. Avoiding traps.
Except with that focus, obviously, everything becomes a trap.
You start seeing obstacles that don't exist, trying to dodge mines that were never there.
And when everything goes well, you think that's the trap: you must have missed the problem.
It's a perfectly sensible worldview.
There's no game without obstacles, no contest without trials, no competition without competitors.
So if it really is a game, the enemies are hiding.
You have to find them.
And when you're focused on that search, you always do. You make them up if needed.
In doing so, you miss what's actually going on: there was never a competition.
There was never a game.
Only in our heads.
Or maybe there was — the original game:
The one with no winner, no loser, that you play only to celebrate the joy of being together.