Okay, you and I need to have a talk. The kind where we both sit down, phones on silent, and focus. It’s not going to be easy, so don’t get mad.

I can tell you’re struggling. You seem frustrated and kinda angry. I want to talk through this…see if we can lighten your load a bit.

I’m guessing it’s the daily news that’s weighing you down. It gets me, too. We are being force-fed the entire world, all the time, in real time, often with a bias in one direction or another. Your nervous system was not built for this. Mine wasn’t either.

Two hundred years ago, nobody cared what was happening on the other side of the country—or the world. Not because they were heartless. But, because they were human. Their bandwidth was taken up by things like keeping their kids healthy, making sure the crops didn’t fail, and hoping the livestock didn’t freeze to death in winter.

If there was a war, the news might reach you months later. No embedded journalists. No live feed of explosions in ultra high-def video, on a 55 inch screen. No talking heads screaming at each other in prime time.

Just curious, when exactly did watching people scream ant each other about politics on television become entertainment?

Newspapers, back then, were local and weekly. They told you what you needed to know to function in your community for that week. Today, our news is global and constant. It’s less about informing you and more about keeping you emotionally jacked up.

See fear and outrage keep you tuning in. Clapping like one of those cymbal banging monkeys. And that emotion keeps you watching drug commercials for Ozempic and Jardiance—whatever that is. You aren’t being informed, you’re being suckered.

You aren’t alone. Lot’s of my readers feel the same way. I can see it in the feedback. There’s a low-level hum of anxiety. The kind you get when you have one too many Starbucks coffees. Like something bad is happening—and somehow you feel like it’s your responsibility to carry it for the world. It isn’t. Every one of the world’s problems isn’t yours to solve.

If you pay attention to the arc of your life, you’ve dealt with some really tough stuff—going all the way back to high school. Remember? Stuff that, at the time, you just couldn’t see how it could work out. And, yet it did. In fact, everything has always worked out. Not perfectly. Not painlessly. But you’re still here at the table. So am I.

The earth has been forming, freezing and regenerating for millions of years. Countless civilizations have come and gone. Our graveyards are filled with millions of people who once walked the same path as you—with the same concerns as you. Here for an instant, gone in an instant. A flash of lightning in the summer sky. That’s why a rational person should cultivate indifference to things outside of their control.

When you’re in hospice with six days left you aren’t going to care about this stuff. And yet, you’re spending your finite energy and time remaining focused on things you can’t control. Absorbing stress about situations that won’t be solved in your lifetime—or ever. Like the old man yelling at the clouds. Pointless. A chasing of the wind.

At best, you get maybe 80 or 90 years on this planet if things go well. More if you’re mean or stubborn. Every generation thinks their crisis is unprecedented. Every generation is dead wrong.

There are events consuming your emotional energy today. Events that are algorithmically engineered to get and hold your attention. And, the worst part is, you already know this.

You know that we will be long gone before the final chapter is written. So why are you living as if it’s your job to supervise the universe? It’s not your job to be the world’s mall cop.

You assume that your constant vigilance matters. That it somehow makes you a better citizen of the world. That you care when nobody else does. That if you stop paying attention, something will fall apart. Or the bad guys will win. The problem is that you are shadow boxing with a ghost.

Yes, we’ve both been duped.

Modern life has tricked you into confusing awareness with responsibility. You are aware of everything, so you feel responsible for everything.

There’s a reason the world feels like it’s always on the brink. That’s the product being sold. Meanwhile, you’re wasting what’s left of your limited time remaining on earth.

The irony is brutal. You stress about abstract threats while ignoring tangible blessings. You’re worried about the future while missing the present. You’re trying to mentally solve problems that don’t belong to you while avoiding the ones that do.

And most of what will affect your life is happening much closer to home than you think.

Your health.
Your habits.
Your relationships.
Your sense of purpose.
How you spend your days.

These are the variables that determine the quality of your existence. Not cable news. Not conflicts. Not whatever scandal is trending this morning.

You don’t need to be perpetually upset to be a good person. You don’t need to carry the emotional weight of the world to be compassionate. You don’t need to binge crisis content to be “awake.”

If the weight of the world is getting heavy, maybe you should just set it down, step back, breathe, and say: this is not mine to carry. That doesn’t make you apathetic. It makes you smart.

If you really sit with it, you’ll see that your life has a way of unfolding exactly as it needs to, even when it doesn’t make sense in the moment. The job you didn’t get led to something better. The relationship that ended made room for one that fit. The thing you feared never came, or if it did, you survived it.

So yes, the world is messy. It always has been. You are not obligated to tend to every crisis. You are not required to have an opinion on everything. You are allowed to protect your attention like the finite, precious resource it is.

You’re only here for a blink. Maybe you should spend the time you have living in peace. Or not. It’s up to you.

I’m glad we had this little talk. I feel better.

Are you feeling angry or frustrated about the world? Leave me a message by clicking the link below. I promise that you’ll hear back from me cause, you know, I’m a real person and all.

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