Uncovering The Roots Of Distress

One of the most interesting things about the connected to all the things time that we live in is the by-product of constant distress that it has brought about in people.

What do I mean by that? Well, let's take this week alone we have the US election, the ongoing Ukraine war, the Twitter Files, and in crypto-land, the FTX shenanigans. Not to mention countless stories of ill human behavior towards other humans and the planet.

Now, I know the media makes it a point to highlight the bad because of psychology, but instead of getting the onslaught of things once or twice a day, it's at our finger tips and streaming into our consciousness almost every waking minute if we allow it.

One side effect of the onslaught of distressing things is it appears as if a lot of humans either exist in or seek a constant state of distress. When I am around people they tend to wax vehemently about whatever thing has got them upset. Heck, I am even prone to behaving this way, as we are all part of the herd.

That said, this morning I read, *It's not the thing, It's what we make of it."

External things are just that, they are on the outside of us, it's our judgment of them that gives us distress.

Now, I love to read the news, I love to learn about advancements in science, what's going on in all of the nooks and crannies of this planet, and I truly enjoying gisting the overall tone of how my fellow humans are feeling about all the things from Elon memes to Gen Z slang, but at the same time, too much opinion, too much feels, without a healthy dose of perspective resetting can leave one in a state of distress. A state that's completely unnecessary.

And I am not talking about being passive. It's good for us to put the work in on things that matter to us, rather I am just putting forth the idea that if you spend most of your day in a feed-incited emotional roller coaster of rage and self-righteousness induced feelings over things, then you are truly doing yourself a disservice.

I live in a state that has been flooded with people from other states who are seeking freedom. I love that sentiment, but a lot of those same people are aiming to impose their so-called ideals on the citizens of my state by bringing in policies, law, and behavior that show they are not very freedom oriented at all, rather they just want things their own solely from opinion and experience-derived way. Freedom to self-determine comes at a cost of luxury and convenience. Freedom does not mean making a bunch of laws to force people to conform to your ideology. One woman even had the gall to stand up at a meeting I was at and say We are here to save you.

As a person who spent most of my life bending myself around others and making sure they are comfortable, I am very well versed at only being myself in the realm of my mind, the only place where true freedom is attainable. That said, as I sail into middle age I have found myself becoming more opinionated, and nothing makes me more vociferous than exhibited totalitarian behavior no matter what side of the political spectrum the authoritarian resides on.

And so then I too fall down the grousing, griping, and distressed by the external thing rabbit hole.

The problem is, that type of distress dwelling is the biggest waster of our most precious, finite resource, our time. Why in the world should I choose to spend even a minute of my beautiful existence in this world flummoxed and miserable over something that is beyond my control? It makes way more sense to train my mind to acknowledge, accept, and do the work on what is good with an attitude of awesomeness rather than mire around like a perpetually outraged victim.

We are not victims of our circumstances, rather we are completely capable of being victims of our opinions of said circumstances.

Talk about a hard lesson to learn though. I constantly backslide into my thoughts about things mire all the time, especially because of those neat little chemical-caused saboteurs, emotions.

But having the ability to zoom out of my head, to realize when I am in that pit of distress that I cause myself, has made it better in regards to how long I spend in distress.

Nothing about living good is easy. Doing the work to grow never is, but just like anything else that yields goodness in this life, the process is the important part. Because it is the only part we get to control, whether we are crippled by our thoughts on external forces or rather we accept what's outside our control, we should strive to make sure our opinions regarding said things aren't causing us harm, and keep moving forward doing the job of living.

Because cultivating the soil, while hard work, yields a great harvest if you take the time to amend the growing medium.😉

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And as most of the time, all of the images in this post were taken on the author's never distressed but capable of over-heating iPhone, the header and footer images were made in Canva.