Is the World Ending? Who Cares?

The Beginning…or is it the End?

In the literal wake of multiple natural disasters in the United States these past few weeks, it is easy to feel helpless and overwhelmed. The grief of information is almost unbearable in our modern times. “Grief of information” is a phrase I have crafted carefully to explain a specific and real cost to being informed - not just in this case, but in many. For example, people who are informed regarding correctional policies will be facing an additional complication of grief; they will know that during natural disasters, people are often left in facilities unevacuated and, in some circumstances, to disastrous effects and loss of life. So, the grief comes from knowing all the shadows in which people suffer. Ignorance is, in some regards, bliss. If you are here reading, I know that we are already beyond the possibility of ignorance, but maybe we can get closer to bliss or fulfillment in the face of being overwhelmed. If you want to skip to strategies, feel free to head to the ending header “How to Deconstruct” and go from there.

These events bring up compassionate grief and, often, fears of our mortality, which further sensitizes us to doomsday rhetoric that spreads farther than just the realm of climate disasters. So, here we sit, shaking, sweating, and crying over videos and articles. A perfect example is the meteorologist who was crying while on the air about Hurricane Milton approaching the mathematical limits of possibility. Now, this was a deeply impactful show of human connection and concern for a very real issue. That was also a man who cried publicly at his job on national television and had to go home with those very big feelings. This historic moment, and this man’s reporting of it, shows us exactly how impactful these moments are for even the most seasoned veterans. Things are different, bigger, and ever-present. Even if we cannot change that, we can address the pressures that come with these experiences and the aspects of our experiences that we do have control and responsibility over. I want to help you face history with your chin up and take action.

Take a moment to think of someone you have seen in the past few years who has taken some action to prevent an outcome you fear and whose efforts you consider historic. Someone you think should be written into our history books as a leader in a movement or issue you are passionate about. This could be a journalist, a political activist, or a community member. Remember, even if these are actions that you would not or could not take, people aren’t only sitting silently in the face of adversity. Leaders take action for the possibility that people will follow. If you will walk with me today, I want to help you find your personal historic drive to either lead innovatively or follow something you believe in.

Where’s the Fear?

Now, climate disasters are not the only piece of this puzzle, as doomsday rhetoric is everywhere. Artificial Intelligence (AI) takeover, anti-intellectualism, the literacy crisis, the homelessness crisis, the mental health crisis, the ripple effects of the pandemic, threats of global war, H5N1 in dairy cows, genocides (plural), strikes, political takeover or governmental collapse, violent crime, state violence, concussion syndromes, masculinity, parenting rights and everything that might threaten the children, every angle of our sexual lives and reproduction, fracking, immigration, end-stage capitalism — hoooo…I’m winded. Are you tired? Pause and check how you’re feeling right now. This is what your newsfeed, social media, and most of your conversations make you feel like, too, right?  

This is not the only time in American history that doomsday rhetoric has been utilized. In fact, very few periods in history have had limited doomsday rhetoric or general feelings of prosperity: the “roaring 20s” that you may recognize from The Great Gatsby, the economic prosperity following the Second World War, and sometime after the Cold War ended. However, if you’re reading this, these times may be farther than recent memory.

We could spend the rest of our lives talking about the validity, causes, and outcomes of each of these topics and issues. However, I want to focus on the commonality between them. Every one of these conversations includes narratives that this issue will be the end of “us.” At least one of those topics probably affected your mood because of that burden of informational grief that you are carrying. You’re informed, so each phrase opens a tab of narratives and information that weighs you down.

Now, these issues are real, the data is real, the impact on individuals both directly and indirectly is real. However, whether the doom is real, we must ask - does it help us?

Taking Stock or Getting Stuck

Instead of using our time here to cry or debate - we will talk about the grief of information and how it connects to our learned helplessness. Learned helplessness is the idea that we internalize the idea that we cannot change our circumstances (particularly bad experiences) after repeatedly encountering the same problem. Effectively, we give up after we bang our heads against the same wall too many times. The problem is that there are infinite creative solutions to problems that we will miss once we decide that nothing can be done about it, or we give up after we do not like the options. This phenomenon has been named for about half of a century now - you are not the first to feel it.

However, in today’s world, you are likely facing a unique combination of factors that can further develop learned helplessness. Repeated exposure to stressful experiences, the constant stream of seemingly unsolvable problems, and experts telling you that you can’t control your feelings, all play a role. If you read my article, Stop Making Serotonin Jokes, you may remember that the idea that mental health is purely a brain disease influences how people view their ability to recover. People who put a lot of weight into their diagnostic labels feel more helpless and can have worse outcomes and lower levels of coping. The United States has officially peaked in access and utilization of therapy and counseling. This means that the messaging you’ve received in the American culture, your friend group, your advertisements, and all other messages have also likely peaked. This specifically modern phenomenon makes it easier to fall into a mindset where change feels impossible, not just globally but personally as well.
Let’s talk about how doomsday rhetoric used to look and how it has soured. During the Y2K scare, doomsday rhetoric was used to motivate people. The information was spread effectively, and people made changes and choices to try to plan for the worst. Luckily, Y2K wasn’t the end of all of our technology. During the Cold War, doomsday narratives made sense because of the true immediacy and possibility of the fallout.

However, now, we run into the mathematical probability of learned helplessness instead of motivation. With the increase in access to information (and the grief that comes with it) we hear this narrative applied to almost every social problem. Many experts are well-intentioned and are reaching for an old narrative that used to be a call to action; if you are the leading expert or an activist in trying to solve the housing crisis, you need to scare people a bit about the severity of the issue - because it is bad. However, as an informed community member living in a faster and wider-reaching news system - you’re hearing this from everyone.

Unless you have a superhuman level of self-discipline and predictive ability, your entire technological experience is hearing a constant stream of “This is the worst outcome possible, and there’s nothing you can do about it.” So, we’re checking the boxes of learned helplessness every day: encountering the same problem (in a different package) (over and over and over again) with no clear good solution. So, instead of creating a sense of urgency, you are suddenly sat down to wait for these allegedly inevitable and infinite atrocities.

What’s up with Everybody Else?

Now, it is unsurprising that you have not had the energy or options to address massive social injustices. This does not say anything about your moral alignment. Alongside doomsday rhetoric, there are too many conversations already placing blame for these issues and their perceived insufficiencies. Everyone thinks they know who is at fault for the lack of solutions or effort. However, I want to even the playing field to help everyone get a bit closer to being able to do any small thing that helps the issue and yourself.

Most people who are trying to motivate you are telling you what the right way to respond or the right reason not to respond is. However, just like learned helplessness, this creates a barrier to action. If you’re not acting the “right way,” then you shouldn’t act at all. Actually, if you don’t do it this way not only should you not act, but you’re part of the problem. How could you win?! This us versus them approach to communal issues impacts the ability to feel like anyone can connect with others to experiment the way forward. This phrase comes from Adam Kahane’s book Collaborating with the Enemy, in which he explains that people who disagree on a particular solution to a problem can still agree to move forward and try new options in lieu of agreement on the methods.

To think about how disagreement does not have to prevent progress, let’s apply this to something mundane. “Us versus them” is the messaging we see in most American conflicts, from romantic partnerships to international wars. Too often, the disagreement or lack of a clear solution means that nothing gets done. It doesn’t have to stop our progress, though. Adam Kahane’s message could make a difference in all kinds of conflicts, from social issues to the most bureaucratic. For example, let’s consider the difference between a homeowners association that achieves goals or just collects dues. Let’s say that the community issue is that parking regulation is insufficient, and everyone is affected. One board member might feel that the solution is more harsh penalties for violating the current protocol, and another could believe that the solution is to have more parking spaces overall. Now, these people, if they begin the collaboration with this disagreement, can find infinite reasons not to support the other’s solution: finances, moral rightness, or spite - sound familiar? However, if these people agree that the problem is worthy of any kind of action and that no one knows exactly how specific efforts will pan out, they can start at step 1 and build new options together. This is a way to “experiment the way forward.” Everyone agrees that the problem needs addressing. It is more productive to agree that the solution must be found along the way. This works best because you cannot know what will work until you start. This goes for HOAs, Universal Basic Income (UBI), Sexually Transmitted Illnesses (STIs), and other acronyms and issues alike.

Let’s consider for a moment the different responses to this hypothetical doomsday, apocalypse, or sudden fall of society. Let’s assume that the agreement is that the forces of this downward trajectory are inescapable and, if not unchangeable, still stronger than our efforts. Everyone’s beliefs vary heavily because they intersect with various views and experiences. However, the main meaningful difference will be how their views are situated within their beliefs about personal responsibility and capability. This decides whether you act - which matters more than how you act. For example, someone who believes these current events are signals of the rapture typically believes they will be rescued from it. Regardless of the truth, it means that they are less likely than others to feel called to act in any way. In contrast, others who feel more personal responsibility are likelier to engage with solutions. However, it’s not just responsibility that matters, as many readers are immobilized by the responsibility and grief that they feel. I do not doubt that your inaction comes with guilt. However, that is what we’re trying to remove from the equation because it slows us down.

Experimenting Forward for Yourself

Getting rid of the grief doesn’t mean that you have to stop being informed. However, we must find a way to consume the information without it adding to our pile of helplessness. We know that the belief that nothing can be done keeps us from trying. Let’s remember the example of the modern historic hero you thought about earlier. What was it about their action that inspired you? Regardless of the variety of answers that my readers might give, the common aspect is that they did something. It may have taken a day, a week, a career, or a lifetime, but they did something. The difference between them and the people who were washed away by history and tragedy is action and believing that they could.

We have to deconstruct the doom from doomsday. Unfortunately, even with the sheer number of tragedies, it has to be just another day. Another day, though, with which you can do something meaningful.

How to Deconstruct

First, the goal is to limit engagement with narratives that reinforce the beliefs and feelings that come with apocalyptic ideas. By doing this, we can learn to resist the urge to find the worst answer to uncertainty. These narratives impact us because we don’t have the answers to what will happen, and we grasp for a piece of closure. However, when that closure is the most devastating answer, maybe there are better options. Although the more optimistic outcome may seem less likely, the future is impossible to know, and you have control over what you believe is possible. I will not sit here at a time when “doomscrolling” is a common phrase and pretend that limiting unhealthy engagement with social media is a groundbreaking idea. It would be negligent not to mention that the most accessible strategy in this fight is limiting unproductive engagement with media. I will, however, give you some new practical tools throughout these last few sections.

A Tale of Two Acceptances

There is one thing that may still be a barrier, no matter how motivated you are, and it is connected to the informational grief I’ve discussed. There is an unnamed fear and grieving process that only loses power once you’ve explicitly named and addressed it. In order to believe that you can change things, you have to come face to face with a realistic win and the losses that are alongside it. The grief of working toward an issue that is so large it seems unsurmountable comes with a real negotiation: it has to be worth working toward a goal that you may not reap the benefits of, but that someone else might. Many of the issues that overwhelm us do so because of their interconnectedness, historical presence, potentially severe impacts, and the longevity of their potential impacts. This means that you must genuinely grasp and accept that you can affect change that may not benefit someone for decades. It could be that your efforts lead to a future that you do not see. This may be why activists who are “doing it for the children” often have effective organization and strategy - they understand that the act of change has to be truly selfless in the long term.

If you’re not there yet, it is okay. I will also discuss ways to better your current situation. If this is your starting point, you have your acceptance challenge. If you are unable to work for a better future because you need a better now, we still have to take power away from the doom. To achieve that, we have to accept that the worst-case scenario is real. Fine, let’s say the apocalypse will be tomorrow, and you are not fortunate enough to be one of those who are saved. Then, how do we make today the best use of your final hours? Do you really want to spend your final days in fear? Or do you want to make the absolute most of what you’ve got? Obviously, everyone answers that they want the fear gone, but that doesn’t happen until you’ve fully accepted that the only betterment you will get is from your own choices and actions. MAKE the good, like it is the last good you’ll ever get. This means that your cost-benefit suddenly looks a bit different. For example, the social gathering that you’re nervous about may still be uncomfortable to work up the courage for - but if the end is soon, it could be more worth the discomfort than it was a few years ago.

1. Getting Out of Your Own Way

Taking Inventory

Remember the check-in earlier? When I asked you to pause and see how my list of tragedies made you feel? We want to build that as a habit. Sometimes, you won’t even notice how your media affects you because it all moves so quickly. That includes not only social media but TV and articles. If the headline of an article churns your stomach, save it and return to it when you can handle it. The important piece is that it is your responsibility to work toward being well enough to learn more.

An unfortunate reality is that if you cannot engage with media of certain content without crying, losing sleep, or feeling sick, you have work to do before you learn more. These are signs that we need to work on general coping and life satisfaction and fulfillment at your baseline. You’ve heard (and ignored the cliches) that “you cannot pour from an empty cup” and you “have to put your oxygen mask on before someone else’s.” I wish I could tell you that you can just barrel through and avoid that work, but unfortunately, those statements are commonly repeated for a reason. I know these issues are important to you because they wouldn’t be so impactful otherwise.

You owe it to yourself and others to take care of your well-being so that you can actually invest in the action you want to do. If you are at the level that the existential dread is so severe that when you engage with a piece of media on a social issue, it affects your mental, physical, or emotional well-being for more than 30 minutes every time, then I would recommend reading other articles on soothsayings and collecting any techniques that work before reengaging with community development, activism, or these topics at all.

It may be hard to hear, but if you cannot self-regulate back to an okay mood after consuming media on a specific topic within 30 minutes, you are not regulated enough in your general life to engage with that media. The good news is that many tools and techniques are available for trial and error until you can reach that point. Until then, though, you will be traumatizing yourself and extending the amount of time that you are stuck in an emotional shutdown.

If there has been a time in the last month when you intentionally went to read the news, check in on a social issue, or familiarize yourself with something new that was tragic and you self-regulated after processing the upsetting information - move on.


Regulation

So, we want to identify how our media is making us feel. We want to take time for check-ins which allow us to see how it affects us and slow down and process the material we are consuming. While you are consuming media, we want to build intentionality first. So, we need to learn how to be deliberate about engaging with these topics.

Self-Assessment:

• Pick a duration of time that suits you (the less naturally this process comes to you, the shorter the direction) like 15 minutes, 30 minutes, or an hour, and set a timer. 

• Once the timer chimes set another for five minutes. 

• During these five minutes, you want to take deep breaths and catalog how your body feels. What kind of thoughts are you having? How different do you feel since beginning to read, watch, or listen? Has your mood gotten better or worse? What could you be doing right now that would make you feel good? Does that sound more or less satisfying than what you are currently doing? 

• If you feel that you have the ability to continue engaging with your media without it distressing you, repeat the process. 

• The most important step is that once you notice you are dysregulated, you have to walk away and do something that helps you feel better. Just like we should after a hard day, upsetting conversation, or a loss - we need to actually recuperate. 

Picking Your Leaders:
It is important that we don’t let just anyone tell us how to feel, act, and what to believe, especially when we are at our maximum capacity for dread. If you believe in the sentiments of today’s article, we have to start by weeding out content and creators who aren’t giving us productive information besides these doomsday narratives. If you catch yourself engaging with someone or something that only has to offer the worst possible outcomes and no nuance or room to feel okay - unfollow, block, or delete your tab.

Then let’s work to opt-in to places and people where we can get the same information but a better structure. I have a news source that I read that provides me with multiple reports of the same news headline by rankings on factuality levels, political leanings, and ownership of the media group. I am fortunate enough to be able to pay for this service (ground.news) - but the same thing can be achieved by searching for a topic and sorting through the reports. For something as important as these issues, why would we be putting in the effort to make the trust we give more exclusive?

For every new source you follow that specifically engages with hard topics, I challenge you to find and follow an uplifting, funny, or creative page. Evening out your ratios of content makes a difference.

Tracking and Formality:

For my overachievers, there are additional steps you can take to streamline your consumption.

• Keep a journal (or note app page) for a few days logging what topics, sites, or specific triggers are most distressing. This helps you identify areas you are especially sensitized to.

• Track when you start to doomscroll, struggle to stop, or notice but continue to spiral. Pay attention to what feelings or habits motivate your consumption. 

• Track how much you are consuming different media types. If you can grasp where your attention is divided, you can spend your time more effectively. 

• Your phone likely already tracks your screen time, which can be a resource for tracking that takes low effort - but you do have to actually check it.

• Finally, if you’re dedicated to making a change, use the app blockers and screen time controls on your phone or laptop to restrict your access beyond a limit that makes sense for you. 

Tit for Tat for TikTok:

The average American spends 7 hours - almost half their waking time - looking at a screen. Now, much of this is for work purposes (although non-work content creeps in, I’m sure.) Estimates are that about 2 hours of that are spent on social media. 

• Make a list of productive or positive activities that require tools or materials you already have (books, journaling, sudoku, cleaning, etc.) 

• For every 30 minutes on social media, swap to 30 minutes doing something else that you enjoy.

• When you start to notice (through check-ins) that you’ve reached you limit, turn to an activity off of your list instead!

• Celebrate small wins! Whenever you conquer the urge to “doomscroll” or put down your media when it’s affecting you, or anything similar, acknowledge the effort it took and allow yourself to feel proud. 

• A long-term goal could be to replace unhelpful scrolling with creative, productive, or community-based activities. 

• When you feel the urge to get on social media, you are likely craving either socialization or creativity. See what happens if you replace 30 minutes of social media with a phone call or conversation with someone you know instead. 

Newspaper Mornings: 

One way to ensure that you are still staying connected and informed but have more control over your engagement with that media is to build a routine that includes it. 

• Find 30 minutes to an hour that you can protect during the week.

• Build into your calendar or routine one hour a week for intentionally reading about the topics that are important to you but are often distressing.

• This allows you to stay engaged but plan and prepare for the emotional impact it can have on you. 

• By identifying ideal sources in the earlier activity, you’ll be able to reach for specific pages, people, or topics during this time instead of being bombarded by unproductive or unexpected content. 

Emergency Management:

Let’s stay prepared. Sometimes, we miss our limits and thresholds and go well beyond them. For these times, we can have management plans and react to them in a way that doesn’t further distress us. Too often, we sit in our misery, and we marinate in it instead of moving beyond it. The results of this will look different for everyone but here are some simple techniques you can use when you get overwhelmed by the existential dread or when you’re transitioning away from upsetting media.

• Reframing: when you become overwhelmed with disaster and doom, ask yourself, “what happened today that was meaningful?” Answer first with the smallest example of something good, meaningful, or fulfilling that happened - even if that was a good sandwich. Try also asking, “what am I grateful for?” and “what gift can I give myself right now?” 

• Reminders: Simple self-talk like, “this is important, and now I know about it. I am still standing, I am safe, I can handle this” can help stop the continuous thoughts of panic or dread.

• Sensory Safety: During panic or overwhelm, choose a sense (smell, taste, touch, hearing, sight) and activate it with something new. Smell a soap in your house that you enjoy the scent of. Run your hands under cold water. Listen to a song that comforts you. 

• 5-4-3-2-1: Out loud, name 5 things you can see, 4 things you can touch, 3 things you can hear, 2 things you can smell, and 1 thing you can taste. 

• Engage Muscles: focus on tensing and relaxing different muscle groups. This increases blood flow and can help ground yourself in the physical sensations in your body and the control you have over them.
  
  

2. Building Capacity

After you reduce the active reinforcement of the apocalyptic rhetoric you’re exposed to, there is still more you can do. We want to work on building the capacity to believe in better outcomes to move toward motivation for real action.

Global to Local

The shift in news media over time has been drastic. In some ways, we have the advantage of having more information than ever before. However, if you are consumed by global news, you will feel less capable of making a difference because the issues are not within your proximity. Obviously, stay connected to information that is relevant to your home country or relevant areas in your life. However, with intentional work to look into those subjects, you can stay up-to-date and limit your exposure to other large-scale issues. Otherwise, we want to move our focus to more local issues and occurrences since your range of influence is more direct there than anywhere else. To become an involved community member, we must first be an informed community member. Simply knowing the history of a social issue or the most tragic occurrences in a specific area does not make you a useful or productive member of an area, group, or community. 

• Follow local sources, groups, and organizations. We want to make sure that the information we are getting is within our direct area and includes positive, negative, neutral, boring, and interesting information. This means reading posts about what the library is doing and checking in on how city commission meetings went. Real life, at some points, is boring. If you find yourself disappointed by this instead of relieved, regulation is a priority. 

• Set a small, achievable goal within your area! This does not have to require transportation, money, or physical presence. It could be a Zoom call, post, or phone call connection. Set a small actionable goal that includes or impacts your immediate community or neighborhood. When you reach that goal, even if it is a phone call, celebrate and share the news with your friends or loved ones. 

Solution-Focus
Over time, the goal is to move toward solution-focused instead of deficit- or problem-based thinking. We are constantly told about what is going wrong. To experiment the way forward, we want to strengthen our ability to think in a creative and future-focused way. 

• Pick an issue, topic, or movement that you find important. Make a list of creative ways to make small, even tiny, changes to the issue. This could be as simple as moving one person’s experience toward the better. This could be fake policies that, if implemented, you think would make a difference. 

• If it is challenging to consider potential changes, start small. Take the problem and write down different ways to define it. Then, take the issue and separate out individual elements of the large version to find smaller pieces. 

• When you think about the topics that impact you, write down the emotions that come up. Then, list out ways to address the feelings. If you cannot start by changing the issue, maybe you can make a difference in yourself first.

3. Reconstruct

After you’ve gotten out of your own way and created space, you can build something new. This is true within yourself as much as it is within your community. The goal in this stage is to bring in as much new and positive as you can - in any way. This means that even adding new magnets to your fridge that make you happy are an addition that I support. 

Inspiration and Guidance

• Find groups, people, or organizations in your area that have taken action in ways that you find helpful or inspiring. This could be current or previous! It’s important to recontextualize that things haven’t always been exactly what they are now, even if you have not yet been involved in any change.

• Find social media groups, leaders, events, or groups dedicated to positive change, whether personal, social, or toward a certain issue. 

• Follow social media accounts that share inspiring and positive stories of any kind. 

• Identify people that you think are doing things that make a difference. Set a goal to send an email, call, or connect with someone who has done something you respect. Even if it is a cold-call email that just shares your admiration. 

Change Narratives

• Whenever possible, and to whomever possible, share positive changes and goals you have reached. Even something as simple as completing a household chore should be shared. The more you talk about change, the more possible it seems in all categories.

• When you hear doomsday rhetoric being shared, in any capacity, opt out, change the framing, or add in your own perspective as positively as you can.

• Start substituting learning instead of ideas of “failure” in your narratives and in your loved ones. When something goes differently than expected, try sharing what you learned instead of focusing on what wasn’t completed or achieved. 

• Work on a team as often as you can. Working with others toward a shared goal means that the wins are shared and the problems are addressed more thoroughly. 

• At every opportunity, break big goals down into the smallest ones possible. Even when you are speaking about change, start with the smallest step toward what you want instead of the final goal. 

• If you like to journal or blog, reflect regularly on your beliefs and motivation. Paying attention to how you feel about things can create the opportunity for change in them. It also creates opportunities to celebrate wins and remember that things change even when you’re not trying. 

Share Responsibility

It is important to remember that if each of us is making an effort toward something good (whatever that means to us), then we are all working together. This means that we are responsible for adding as much good as possible, even if certain efforts feel fruitless or doomed. If you hold the door open for a community member, you have to believe that you are adding something good, even just for that one person. Did you know that geese fly 70% farther in a group than they can alone? Think of you and your loved one as geese and figure out how to fly together whenever possible.  

Start with What You Know

• Define what good means to you in action, in people, in yourself, existentially, morally, every way you can. There is further guidance on defining values in They Can’t Sell You a Conscience if you want to explore different ways to do this. 

• Think of the people you personally know and care about, regardless of how recent or deep your connection is. Make a list. This is your network, even if you are not accessing or influencing it right now. 

• Every person has skills, including you. Try making a list (or have a friend make a list for you) of your strongest skills in any category. This list is your inventory of what you have to offer to your loved ones.
  
  

Beginning to Begin

• Start with a small goal - calling a friend when you have the time even though you’re nervous, making food for someone you love, sending a letter to an organization expressing your support. The key is that the completion of the task is the success! 

• Start a group accountability system. Find likeminded people (through previous actions like learning about local organizations or reaching out to friends) and create a group somehow (virtual, in-person, at a friend’s house) and regularly check in on your progress for your goals (including doomscrolling.) Celebrate every win together! 

• Define your control. Regarding the issues that are important to you or in other realms of your life, create an inventory of things you can and cannot control. This is most effective when done regularly, like daily or weekly. If you are still early in your journey, start regularly with anything you can control - like your AC in your home or the ringtone on your phone. 

• In the simplest terms, we want to do more of the good whenever possible and less of the scary things as often as possible. That seems overly simple, but it will slowly move you toward believing that things can get better, whether that is just for today while we wait for disaster or to help carry us past the point of disaster.
  
  

Be Ready to Succeed

If you start practicing now, the next time you hear of something tragic or challenging, it will be in your physical proximity. This could be challenging, but hopefully, you will recognize that you and your community can make something better for those in the middle of it all. If circumstances are going to be hard, then we can at least try to make it better for the people around us when we can offer our skills. Each person can offer either time, money, energy, physical presence, or voice. Find out which one you have available or can access for the causes you care about. When in doubt, ask someone how you can help or what kind of support is needed. Once you step away from the global, apocalyptic view, maybe your vision will be clear enough to see the suffering that is within your reach. We can only hope that when you’re there, the narratives haven’t sat you down for so long that you can’t stick your hand out for the people right in front of you. Whether it is in your personal friend group, in conjunction with an organization, or part of your job  - you can do something! Let’s take care of you now so that you can build up the capacity to help. Once you’ve identified your people, keep it simple with the skills you’ve practiced above.

• Engage and learn from the group. Instead of learning from the global internet network, use your listening and regulation skills to learn from people directly in your community. Find out what they’ve already done, their goals, and what they need. 

• Make a new list of skills after you’ve practiced everything above. Identify your strengths as an individual and what you’re good at on a team - even if that is just supporting and observing. Find where those skills are needed and be there. 

• Start with small goals. Even just reaching out to a group to get to know their mission is a big deal. Start with goals that are so small that they almost don’t feel worth calling them goals - you have to get some wins before the challenges are anything but dreams. 

• Celebrate, don’t compete. Teamwork, experimenting the way forward, and collaboration thrive when everyone takes a piece of the responsibility. When things go well, everyone wins. When things go differently than expected, you learn together. Investment means that you’re there through both and beyond.

• Stay consistent. If you’ve tackled your doomscrolling habit, then you’ve got the discipline to build any habit you want. That habit could be attending meetings, volunteering, or educating. 

• Share progress. Communicate everything, not just between the people involved. Many of your friends, neighbors, and family feel the same way you did at the beginning of this journey. If you are involved in making change, let them celebrate the wins and learn, too. Your public work becomes an inspiration for others.

• Seek out leaders and mentors. You start with inspiring leaders online, and eventually, you will work with personal mentors in your community. One day, you’ll be that for someone else if you keep going. 

The world might feel overwhelming, just as this article might, but remember - you are part of it. You are listening and witnessing all the things this world has to offer, all you have to do is reach out and touch some part of it. Despair and hope are both forms of compassion - like water and ice. Our bodies are 70% water, as is our world. Think about the difference that form makes. You are capable of what you believe you can do, so let’s work together to find a belief that moves us all forward. We don’t need to solve every problem or even have a solution to one. We just need to start somewhere together. Not radical, refreshed.