Overthinking Time Pressure Anxiety

I'm not sure when I developed an internal need to not be late, but it was a long, long time ago. I found compatible (enabling?) sports and jobs where the mindset is "If you're on time, you're late" like rowing crew and the military. I also have a sneaking suspicion that it might be genetic, since part of my family tree is Swiss (see the Swiss stereotypes about punctuality and "rules are rules" in particular). For me, there is some comfort in knowing exactly when things are going to happen.

Why didn't I bring an umbrella? (Source)

Which is proving to be one of the greatest annoyances about living in Saudi Arabia (at least for me, since I'm allowed to drive). What makes it so bad is that the prayer times are constantly changing, which means that you never know exactly when a store will close for prayer, or when it will reopen. The length of time stores stay closed varies, and sometimes the length of the prayer changes too. Why does this matter? When stores start to close their doors, I don't want to be trapped inside. I'm not claustrophobic, but I've got stuff to get done, y'all.

When I see the curtains coming down, a voice in my head starts talking to me in a way that I can best describe as George Clooney in the opening scene from Gravity. You know the one where he calmly (yet urgently) announces that "We have to go. We have to go, go, go." before everything around him degrades into chaos? If not, watch it here (2:40):

But wait, there's more. I'm also a classic over-thinker. Which really helps me in my job as a Foreign Service Construction Engineer, because there are so many things that have to be considered when building a US Embassy. Unfortunately, it also means that my mind almost never shuts off, and this next video was particularly amusing to me because of the constant stream of mental chatter and the whole bit about leaving the house and "did I turn the oven off." Yeah, it gets annoying towards the end, but really does capture my daily experience.

Now, I don't think I have an anxiety disorder by any means (if you think you might, click that link). I would be more likely to agree that I have some form of hyper-vigilance, which, given the current state of the Middle East where I am living right now, might not be such a bad thing. I couldn't figure out how to fit Joseph Heller's line from Catch-22 that goes "Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after you" into this paragraph in a way that doesn't make me sound totally irrational, but it should be noted that one of the main reasons my job exists is to provide safe, secure and functional facilities that represent the U.S. government to the host nation and support our staff in the achievement of U.S. foreign policy objectives. And of course, my current project is already a bit infamous for almost the very same the reasons that trigger those anxieties.

I guess that's win-win, right?

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