How much of our anxiety is self-imposed?

March 31, 2026

No doubt life is stressful, but it’s hardly an uncommon occurrence to find yourself or someone you know anxious in one way of another. Should it really be like this? No.

I wonder, though, how much of anxiety is simply self-imposed?—from unrealistic expectations, from comparing ourselves to others, from stressing about things we cannot control, from discontentment, from trying to appear more “put together” than we really are.

Maybe a lot? Maybe…all of it? Matthew 6:25 comes to mind:

“Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?”

Matthew 6:25 (NKJV)

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