A program has way more failure modes than modes where it is working properly.
I noticed years ago, that being attuned to danger (anxiety) helps me guard against many potential problems in software that others often miss.
But you have to be careful with this approach, it can be like playing with fire. It is very effective, but also can drain you if you over-rely on it.
I have to disagree here. "Being attuned to danger" is, that's an intellectual thing and is good. Anxiety is an emotional response which is unhealthy and affects behavior in negative ways -- e.g. not sleeping well due to worry, eating badly, etc., and those things will reduce your professional performance.
I also disagree that it's an "asset", I'll say already that I hate this type of language that turns everything into money, but from what I can tell and have read, being anxious/depressed/unwell is cognitive & emotionally taxing, and most way-too-anxious people have a hard time just thinking straight, so I think there's no way this this thesis stands.
I'm a very analytic/cautious/rational person and I think this is very related to being able to be a good professional, but I've also always felt that anxiety was poison and got the hell away from what I felt was sources, which I don't regret. I also think it's at least as much exogenous(i.e. environmental) as it is endogenous(i.e. oh you came from the factory with X so that's it). Relax is king.
That's not the same as being a bit paranoid.
Are you saying only people who have had panic attacks have known what 'real' anxiety is?
That is not a plausible claim. There are plenty of people who are anxious, but have never had a panic attack.
That said, anxiety taken as a whole is a severely debilitating condition. It's not even remotely close to being an asset.
And, I didn't mention it above, but someone mentioned that anxiety was the least useful response to stress, but I'm not so sure.
At the individual level it's difficult to experience the world anxiously, but it benefits the group.
Imagine a bunch of monkeys sitting around foraging for food. Some are super chill and don't startle easily, but there will be a few that are anxious and "attuned to danger".
Those anxious monkeys will likely be the first to detect danger and alert the rest of the troupe.
You could say they are providing a service to the rest of the troupe by offloading the vigilance onto a few individuals.
What you are calling anxiety is not anxiety, it's merely being hyper-aware, helped along with a small dose of Adrenalin.
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[1] real ones, where you curl up into a ball, shaking, crying and wishing you were dead, whilst simultaneously completely believing you are dying.
It is possible to be predisposed to anxiety without ever having a panic attack.
Yeah, no.
If people reading this don't understand your comment, then please reread it and post a question.
Honestly, I faced this so much when I was in tech that the stress level became ridiculous.
Bessel van der Kolk has been one of the most important PTSD researchers of the last 40 years, and his work on the embodied aspects of trauma and stress is fantastic.
> Buddha got it exactly right: You need a method for taming the elephant, for changing your mind gradually. Meditation, cognitive therapy, and Prozac are three effective means of doing so.
-- Jonathan Haidt, page 43 in The Happiness Hypothesis (recommended!)
Going a bit personal, continue at your own patience. I was born in a third-world country of a dad that finished his college at 35, while having a kid, waking up at 5 and sleeping after midnight, that would barely see me, as he had to make meets end for our family. Also it was in a currency inflation period and also my mother couldn't breastfeed me, so they had even more problems. Aaaand I also had a lot of health problems at birth. Shits hard. Not to forget that my uncle died shot in the head, mom died from cancer and 99 other problems.
But to me honest, that made me who I am today. I get much more anxious from my past, rather than some "changes in the company" and #firstworldproblems I have today, this gives me some edge against most of the privileged people I work/live with today. Anxiety isn't bad, it can also be good. It would be great if I could get rid of the one from the past, from the times I ate paper with salt, the struggle I saw from my parents, the times we were unsure of the future... and all the bad memories and images that pop up in my head daily.
My brother for instance was born 12 years after me, when my parents had a house and really lacks the "immediateness" I had all my life and still carry it up to this day. He now can study college but he doesn't even know what he wants to do, meanwhile I remember I was already grabbing life by the balls by the time I was 18. He is much happier though, and I can understand him, not really blaming. It is better that way, I guess. But things only greatly change when under pressure.
Those emotions are there for us, and as long as it doesn't create too many bad side effects, we should accept that they do exist and they are great for us.