For some, it seems like a giant leap to say. For others, it’s an obvious statement of fact that, fundamentally, anxiety is fear.

To worry about what might happen, to feel anxious over how things are going or where things seem to be going means, at the root, to fear what might or might not happen. Be it anxiety regarding family, money, politics, AI, parenthood, climate/environment, job, relationships/love, society, friendships, the state of the world, or anything else, it is fear about how this or that thing might negatively impact me and/or those I care about.

On one hand, there’s nothing wrong with anxiety. We all feel it. It’s a perfectly normal human feeling to have. In fact, in certain situations and amounts anxiety and fear keep us safe from eventualities that might cause us harm.

The single biggest mistake most people make in trying to get happy is that they do more things that make them happy. In fact, that is only half the battle. It's the easy part! What needs to happen before that is far more difficult.

The very thing the man was most trying to avoid - his girlfriend cheating - by having his girlfriend spend less time around other men and her friends is the very thing that he basically creates by cutting her off from her sources of joy. By reducing her positive sources of happiness he drives his girlfriend to find maladaptive, non-constructive sources of happiness.