We all lose our bricks for different reasons

While I lived in Toronto, I took a job working as an administrative assistant for the most anxious woman I've ever met.

Those years were some of the most difficult of my professional career.

I’ve buried a lot of the specifics away in my mind, which I think is best for everyone, but I can still picture the way she would speed walk into my office in her little black loafers to tell me about the latest crisis.

She’d look at me over her glasses with her serious face on, “You sent that email out with a typo in it.”

Yeah, when I say crisis I don’t mean, you know, an actual crisis.

In high stress situations, I go to a weird place. It’s like my brain is on pause but my mouth is still going. Sound with no picture. 

To her, it looked like I wasn’t concerned, which she found very concerning, so she’d impress upon me the seriousness of the situation. Meanwhile, I’d feel like I was balancing a stack of bricks in my arms, trying to stay calm, as she added brick after brick to the pile.

“These are important people, Carolyn.” Brick.

“We need to put a process into place to ensure these things don’t happen.” Brick.

“We cannot make these kinds of mistakes. How did you miss it?” Brick, Brick.

Until one afternoon, I lost my bricks.

“Please stop! It was a mistake! I'm upset too, I just manage it differently than you.”

Here’s the thing about anxious people: they understand deeply how difficult it is to hold a heavy burden. The moment, the moment she sensed that I was scared, she became the strongest, bravest, most loving mama bear you’ll ever meet.

“I didn’t know,” she said. Then she told me all the reasons why it didn't really matter after all.

It became clear to me over time that the most anxious woman I'd ever met was not an anxious woman at all but, rather, a perfectly calm woman in a very stressful job.

We all deal with stress in very different ways, and we lose our bricks for very different reasons.

We had a friend over for dinner the other night and, of course, the conversation turned to what's happening in the world.

He's a financial advisor so, naturally, he's scared for his clients and their investments.

I have another friend who's scared that she and other entrepreneurs in our circle will lose their businesses.

And another who's scared for her parents.

I’m not scared about losing money or my business (and I'm pretty sure my mom will be OK as long as she can get a pedicure in before she has to self isolate) but I’ll tell you what, this woman at the grocery store this morning gave me a nasty look because I accidentally cut her off with my cart, and that scared me.

If we all lose our bricks for different reasons, maybe the best thing we can do for each other right now is to do our best not to add any bricks to the pile.

Or even better, take a few off.

Instead of proving that we're right, what if we assume we could be wrong? Instead of "you should" or "you shouldn't" what if we asked "why did you" or "why didn't you"?

Instead of "what's wrong with you" what if we said, "we're all doing our best."

Disagreeing is a good thing. We stand to learn a lot from each other, as long as we can stay curious. Curiosity is the antidote to fear.