My good friend and storytelling ninja Eddy Quan posted a question on X: “Fell into a bad habit of reading the news again thanks to my Twitter timeline. Started to notice my anxiety, stress, fear and general NGMI (not gonna make it) energy penetrate my mind like a deadly virus – I don’t know how regular people do this for years on end. It’s no wonder why they go insane”
Well, it’s more a concern than a question, but it’s something that I’ve had to deal with for years. I mean, it’s not like you can study human nature and disconnect you from the fruits of human stupidity at the same time. That would be like learning about the flora in the Appalachians from a book and never actually going to the Appalachians.
But even if you don’t study human nature (You’ve got me to do the heavy lifting for you, so you have an easier time spotting scumbags as soon as they open their mouths), we cannot fully disconnect from what’s going on with the world. News are, after all, a necessary evil.
I’ve tried myself to disconnect from every source of news every now and then for weeks and even months, and while it’s great for productivity, it somehow feels like I’m losing the grasp on reality. It’s not like I want to become a philosopher or anything. I’m quite pragmatic and whatever patterns I spot, they have to be useful and applicable. And while I could get a lot just from research, nothing beats going all guerrilla analysis on the latest scandal. TMZ more than 5 minutes a day can shave off a couple IQ points, though.
But what we’ve seen lately, in ANY country, is nothing short of insane. The barrage of both bad and confusing news is enough to make everyone doubt if pushing through is actually worth it. “What’s the point anyway, if WW3 is just around the corner?”, an extreme nihilist would say.
And that is without considering that part of my job is offering my unsolicited opinions on what to make of said news. This always sparks clashes with the most vocal of anons, and those exchanges are never pretty. Especially because so many of these anons are thoroughly riveted to their points of view, regardless if their arguments make sense or not. I used to argue with them but not-so-quickly realized it was a waste of everyone’s time, and especially, my energy.
Which leads us to the gist of the situation. Notice that Eddy used the most important word here: Energy. The polarity of what we are exposed to is shifting to the negative a bit too much. It’s always positive (pun intended!) to have some struggle in your life, but too much uncertainty and doomerism will just paralyze anyone. It’s not always fight or flight; it’s also freeze and yearn for your blanket and not leave the bed until the next day.
But then, if we need to stay exposed to what’s going in the world, how can we minimize the impact? There are a couple tips, both external and internal, that I apply:
The best solution, hands down, is to be proactive with your social media channels in regards to telling ‘the machine’ what do you want to see… and what you don’t want to see. For example, in Twitter / X, people ‘like’ posts they like, but there is a way more powerful tool that is the three-point contextual menu and click on ‘not interested in this’.
Presto! Do it enough times (10 to 20, every time you see something you DO NOT like), and the algorithm will adjust the content of your timeline. Every single one of these platforms want you to spend as much time as possible in them, so they want YOU to actively tell them your content preferences.
Even Instagram, which is the official realm for scantily clad ladies promoting their merch and… services?, you can transform it into a concept art catalogue or cat videos galore if you tell it enough times that no, you don’t need to see another duck-faced bimbo twerking on your screen.
But let’s be clear: sometimes the news just pop up. World War 3 has just started this morning! Where’s your nearest nuclear shelter? Do you have SPF 10.000+ sunblock, by any chance? Do you have water purifying packets RIGHT NOW WITH YOU!??
I’ve written about one’s extreme ownership before (everything that happens to you, is your responsibility and no one else’s!) but if by any chance you wake up at 3:11 AM and the sky is lit like a Cali summer midday courtesy of a huge mushroom-shaped cloud, it’s not like you could have done much to prevent it.
Yes. Sometimes you just have to realize that you won’t be prepared to what’s going to happen, and that is IF it happens anyway.
The kind of anxiety that my friend Eddy talks about is keeping our focus fixed on the future, and if you’ve been reading me for some time, you know my rather unorthodox stance in these matters:
The future hasn’t happened yet, so it’s pretty much fruitless to worry about it.
Better yet is to worry about your IMMEDIATE NOW. Because the only way to help your future self (that in some ways, is looking back at you through his memories), is doing something, anything now. ACTION in what’s immediate to you is the only thing that 1) will take your mind off doomerism and 2) will actually change something about the future. Because just pondering and worrying about the future will be as effective as that laptop you saw in Temu for just $12 and for some reason, hasn’t arrived two months after snatching the last one on the site.
But there’s another thing that you can do:
Realize that some things, like the mushroom-shaped midnight sun, are completely out of your control.
And that’s another way our minds try to sabotage us, all the time! We unconsciously choose to focus on a bigger, more ‘dramatic’ problem than the actual problem that is right upon us. That’s the bias of availability clouding our reasoning. For example, driving on the highway is way more dangerous than the probability of any inter-continental nuclear warhead landing on your neighborhood.
It’s just wrong to worry about experiencing black rain firsthand instead of worrying about those emails in our inbox waiting to be answered.
So, the chaotically exaggerated news distort your perception of what’s really going on. News obfuscate your awareness of what you could do to ACTUALLY REDUCE YOUR ANXIETY.
“How could I be answering these emails, the world is coming to an end!”
Now, let’s try to reframe that.
Yes, there IS stuff happening in the world right now. Yes, you should be aware of it… but not too much. Be concerned, but not paralyzed. Aware, but in a state of flow.
Easier said than done!
That’s where I use the concept of just letting go of what is outside of your control.
For example, something really hot right now: elections.
There can be so much information and disinformation out there that making a decision could be difficult or stressing.
Or maybe not. Because despite being such a massive process, you still participate in it with one vote.
BUT there’s only so much information you can process. And it’s highly likely that you’ve got more pressing, more urgent problems right now.
So cut through the chaff, get informed (but not too much), and then vote. That’s it.
Fire and forget.
“But voting is such a CRITICAL decision, it can change the DESTINY OF THE CONUTRY!!1”
Surely, it is. But you need to keep things in PERSPECTIVE. If this seems hard, it’s because your subconscious is trying to delay answering those emails with a ‘bigger and more important problem’, when in reality it’s not.
Or well, maybe it is. Elections are a big deal. This is confusing, right?
But it needn’t be.
Que será, será.
What will happen, will happen.
The sea of events flows and it will never ask for our permission to shift tides.
Nature can’t control how long the storm lasts. How can we pretend to?
If we can’t control it, of what use is to bother?
Focus on the now. Focus on the task at hand. Focus on you, on your family, on your loved ones.
Every now and then, peek into what’s going on around you and, if you can do something about it, just do it.
I hope this helps.
Much Love and Bliss,
Jesús
The Body Language Guy
P.S. Use code POWERPUNDIT to get a 50% discount for my COMPLETE guide to reading facial emotions, on this link: https://campus.knesix.institute/products/digital_downloads/knesix-face-analysis-system
