I’m doing the things.  Thing after thing.  Riding through the anxiety.

The things I’ve been meaning to get to, the things I’ve put off, avoided,  — because of this anxiety.

There are things you do just because they are things you do — brush your teeth, feed the dog, eat breakfast, go to work.

There are things you don’t do because if you do them, it will change your life.

Changing your life is scary.  But you want to change your life because not changing your life is torment.  So you take a deep breath and you do the things.  A little thing here, a little thing there; slowly, slowly, the things start to get done.  And slowly, slowly, your life starts changing.

You feel like you need to do a lot of stretching, because you don’t quite fit right in your worldview anymore.  It’s disorienting.  Sometimes you need a break from doing the things.  Sometimes to get started again, you need to sneak up on the things sideways.  Sometimes you pretend you’re only going to do some of the things.  Sometimes you tell the things to go to hell and you stomp off and pout.  Sometimes you get in the flow and do all the things at once.

Time passes and you keep doing the things.  It’s a good thing you have your whole lifetime to do the things.  A whole, brilliant lifetime of change, as you do the new and scary things; thing by thing by thing.

Then one day you look up.  You realize you’ve been doing the things so long you’re thousands of feet up, looking back at the amazing landscape.  And there are fellow thing-doing Heros all along the trail.  And it occurs to you that doing the things isn’t so dramatic after all.

The things, they’ve just become things you do.