How To Not Be Overwhelmed By Current Events In Three Simple Steps

Right now you're dealing with a pandemic, a giant hurricane, and the end of "the forever war" in Afghanistan. How do you deal with all of this?

I'm certain you probably have other things that are concerning you as well as the three I mentioned. So how do you deal with all of that mentally? I'm going to dig a bit into the stoic notebook and help you navigate some very choppy waters.

*First off, realize that you can tune all of this out. You don't need to watch the news or the commentators minute by minute. All of this will still be there when you have time to process it.

*You are in charge of how you process all of this. You get to decide how you feel or don't feel about this. For example, you could just say, "there's nothing I can do to stop a hurricane and I'm not in its path, so I'm not going to worry about it".

*You get to decide how you react to all of this. Do you feel the need to get involved? Well, the best thing you do is start by doing the smallest thing possible. Let's take these events one by one with some examples. One of the smallest things you can do to help ease the pandemic is to wear a mask. One of the smallest things you can do to help hurricane victims is to just throw a couple of bucks in the coffer at the Red Cross. One of the smallest things you can do about the end of the war is to thank those around you for their service (you don't even have to get into the politics of the war or the withdrawal, just thank those who served).

One of my new favorite sayings is "calm is contagious". We need less scream-y and stressed-out people. Teaching yourself to deal with events like this is good for you and good for the world.