Not everything matters and you don’t have to care.
I have to tell you it feels good to write that, and at the same time I have a sense that reading it might “split the room.” The idea I am digging at here is the pressure we sometimes feel to get involved cognitively or emotionally in things that we can’t actually impact or influence. Why do we do that? What purpose does it serve us to know about, and have deep feelings for things that have little or no impact on our actual lives?
I think in a way it might be social signaling. If we are up to date on the latest fads, trends, gossip, and political maneuvering we may seem more relevant and exciting in our social circles.
It could be a bi-product of the attention economy and we are simply allowing ourselves to be pulled back and forth by the constant streams of media we inject or that get forced into our lives.
Doesn’t it seem liberating to be able to say no thank you to something irrelevant to the life you want to live? How much better would you feel if you passed on an hour of “surfing the news” or “doom scrolling” and went for a walk in the sunshine. What if you did that every day?
Sure you wouldn’t know the latest celebrity gossip, or the state of political intrigue… but you would probably sleep better and have more mental and emotional clarity.
I’m not advocating for disengaging totally from the world. I am saying we can try being more selective, deliberate, and intentional in how we allow our time and attention to be spent.
