A day after petrol prices rose again, I parked my car at work and noticed the parking lot guard looking unusually distressed.
I asked him what was wrong. He said he was worried about all the cars in the parking lot and how their owners would now afford fuel. He was a man who rode a bicycle to work. That moment stayed with me, not because of the price hike—we have all developed a quiet resilience to those—but because of the kind of worry it revealed. A worry not always about one’s own life, but about everything around it, quietly becoming part of how one exists.
Over the years, working with patients, I have noticed a pattern. People are not just anxious. They are stuck in anxiety. It is there in conversations, in silences, in the way people describe their days. Financial strain is the most obvious reason. Incomes struggle to keep pace with rising costs and planning ahead often feels unrealistic. But the anxiety does not end there. Our social structures add their own weight. In joint family systems, where multiple people share limited space and resources, even small decisions can become complicated. Control over money, daily routines and personal choices is often shared or contested. When autonomy is limited, uncertainty grows. And where there is uncertainty, anxiety finds a place.
We have, in many ways, become a society that lives in the near future. Not fully in the present and not quite planning for the distant future either. Just constantly bracing for what might happen next. The next bill, the next shortage, the next policy shift. Gautama Buddha said that if you live in the future, you are anxious. By that measure, we are doing exactly that. Seneca observed that we often suffer more in imagination than in reality. But here, imagination is constantly reinforced by lived experience. Every few weeks, something changes just enough to keep people on edge. It becomes difficult to tell where reality ends and anticipation begins.
Public systems do little to reassure. For long periods, weak implementation of laws allows people to adapt informally. Then suddenly, the same rules are enforced strictly. Street vendors, small business owners and daily wage earners are often the first to feel the impact. A system that shifts unpredictably creates a constant sense of instability. As Lao Tzu suggested, when a country is in chaos, certain responses become inevitable. In our case, anxiety has become one of them. It is no longer just an individual feeling, but something shared and almost normalized.
At the same time, there is increasing pressure to appear successful. People are pushed, directly and indirectly, to spend on clothes, celebrations and lifestyles that may not match their means. The poor often carry the added burden of trying not to look poor. Financial literacy is limited and many people are not confident making independent decisions about money or health. The media amplifies this unease, moving quickly from one crisis to another and rarely offering closure. News focuses on what is happening now, often without resolution, while research and literature aim for clarity and conclusions but receive far less attention. The result is a constant stream of uncertainty.
This has real consequences. Anxiety affects not just the mind but the body. It disrupts sleep, impacts heart health and weakens overall well-being. It also narrows focus. People begin to think only in terms of immediate survival, with little space left for long term goals or personal growth. The solutions are simple, though not always easy. A more modest way of living can help. Spending within one’s means, reducing unnecessary comparisons and focusing on what is essential rather than what is expected. Creating routines that provide some stability. Making space for physical activity and rest.
Mindfulness offers another path. Not as a trend, but as a way of returning to the present moment. Even briefly. Even imperfectly. We may not be able to control rising costs, shifting policies, or the constant noise of the news. But we can decide how much of it we carry with us. Perhaps that is where relief begins. Not in removing anxiety entirely, but in refusing to let it shape every part of our lives.
—The writer is Professor of Public Health, Shifa Tameer-e-Millat University, Islamabad.([email protected])
