Why does most self-help — even intelligent self-help — fail or flounder? Because it’s not the techniques of self-help that count most. It’s the commitment and awareness required to place such techniques into your life. Any technique a therapist suggests, or that you otherwise discover, can only be helpful in that context. Here is a technique that may help with anxiety. Say to yourself, throughout the day: ‘Stay here.’ This means: ‘Stay in the present.’ The statement implies to live in the moment even as you go about your goals in a scheduled, orderly and rational/long-range planning way. Healthy and happy individuals think and plan long-range AND live in the moment. Living IN the moment is just as crucial as long-range planning. If you don’t live IN the moment, then long-range planning is rather pointless because your good planning won’t lead to any enjoyment and experience in any given present. Living in the moment means much more than saving time for recreation. Recreation is the least of it. The goal is to appreciate all the moments as you have them. More abstractly, it means integrating the present with the near and long-term future.