For the past few months, I have been actively working on my mental health. For context, I’ve always been kind of a grumpy guy. When I was younger, I was loud and opinionated. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve chilled out significantly, around other people, but in my own brain I’m as loud as ever and it is very exhausting.
It’s an election year in the states and I suspect it’s going to look a lot like the 2020 race. I had a thought the other day about just knowing people’s opinions on things and election years are that concept, turned to 11. If you’re like me, you check your phone almost first thing every morning. I don’t spend much time on it as Josie and Dani need their walk, to be fed, to be played with (Josie) and cuddled (Dani). However, before the dogs I would lay in bed, open an app and just a flood of everyone’s opinion just comes flying at you. In my opinion, this is overwhelming. It’s addicting. If you’re anything like me, it very much puts you in a sour place and you may not even realize it.
With every conflict being a few keystrokes away, it’s easy to care about far too much, and then eventually care about nothing at all. When it comes to the news and politics, I do care, I just don’t know how much I care about talking about it anymore. Sure, the group chat with my brother and my dad can often be spirited with these discussions and that’s fine but I don’t care to see another tweet/toot/post/whatever about politics. I just don’t.
Sticking your head in the sand and saying “la la la la la I can’t hear you” is not a very good way to go through life. It’s important to be in the know on some things, but I have found it odd that every issue is a national one at this point. Do I really care about legislation in Alabama? Maybe a little if it’s something I disagree with but can I do anything about it at all? No. I don’t live there. Why would I sit there and waste brain cycles/tweets/toots/posts/whatever about it? Why do we do this to ourselves? We can’t fix every injustice in the world. At best, we can help fix the ones local to us and even then, no one can do it alone. It’s easy to feel angry, but being mad at the world/politics, isn’t helping change them.
This should not be mistaken for being apolitical. I’m not. However, it just doesn’t need to be blasted everywhere. Not by me anyway. You do what you want, but I’m going to keep trying finding productivity and happiness in other places.