I was talking to a friend today and explaining how I feel tired lately. A different kind of tired. And I know what you’re thinking: you’ve said this before. And also, being tired is basically adulting. To be an adult is to be tired, often. Still, the kind of fatigue I’m experiencing comes from a place that’s becoming more familiar but in all the ways you wouldn’t want it to.
My friend and I discussed how the world is upside down lately. How on both sides, on all sides, there seems to be an inherent lack of humanity. People seem to be more concerned with being right than helping one another. To be a bit controversial, it is happening on ALL sides. There are those who don’t seem to care about families being torn to shreds, or HUMANS being thrown to asphalt and kneeled on, or have a LOT to say about how people use their SNAP benefits. Also, there are people who are celebrating the harm that is arriving on the doorstep of those who voted a way that they don’t approve of.
I think a little caveat is critical at this juncture. If you were running your mouth and acting a fool at a No Kings Protest (protesting the protest, if you will) and tripped and bumped your big ol’ ignorant noggin, I can’t say my heart is bleeding for you. That said, if you are an unknowing and uneducated kind of person and you’ve been spoon fed bowls of misinformation and now, you are suffering as a result of believing such nonsense, I’m not sure you need to be vilified, on top of the ways in which you are suffering.
Either way, this ghoulish celebration of human distress is, well, distressing. And I am adding that to a giant pile of work stress and some personal issues. It’s all around yuck.
My friend asked me how I cope with it all. A simple question and not even remotely loaded. I explained that I cry, often. I use social media and then disconnect from it at will when it feels toxic. I meditate and run and talk to loved ones who are aligned from a value standpoint. I write. I read. Also, I practice gratitude.
I know, vomit.
It’s true though. There is something incredibly powerful about that kind of awareness. Really. When I’m feeling scared and up to my eyeballs at work and lonely, I think how I have shelter and food and loved ones all around me. I have a few health concerns, but nothing that really stops me from doing most of what I want to do and also, I have health insurance. Health insurance that’s decent and for me, affordable. I ground myself in the reality of my life, which is, in all respects, abundant.
Are things always as I’d wish them to be? Oh god, no. Not even close. I have the same issues that many struggle with and then, my whole unique platter of problems. However, generally speaking, I have options.
Options.
That’s not something we explore enough as a society. We implore people to be compassionate and even, empathetic, but we don’t talk a lot about gratitude, and we sure as shit don’t focus on how many people have options. And we really don’t talk about the fact that instead of options cultivating and growing a sense of appreciation, they give people a platform to stand on. They give people a place to exist from which they can judge others or even, feel ungrateful for the life they have.
None of this is to say that you should just always be happy with whatever the universe doles out to you. I personally have had some really shitty experiences. Some of them were a result of my poor decisions, and others, were just my bad luck. No matter how they originated, I still had obstacles to overcome and sadness to heal.
Everyone is uniquely entitled to whatever they feel at any given moment, but when those feelings extend beyond the tip of our own nose and tip toe into the land of condescension and harm, I think that’s where you lose me.
As Sus always says, never is always wrong and always is never right. So, I’m aware that this sentence I’m about to utter is flawed. Anyway, I’m not sure that the harm caused to another human has ever solved another person’s problems. Even when there is some entirely logical connection, a seemingly rational if-then perspective, I still think it doesn’t work.
You’ve witnessed this in your own personal lives, I imagine. There can be a moment of gratification, for sure, or perhaps a longer beat of satisfaction. And then, nothing. I don’t think most people sustain a sense of relief when another is harmed unless they have serious mental illness (which I don’t say tongue and cheek in any way, because I take that very seriously).
Let’s take an extreme example. A family loses a loved one and the person who has caused the loss is harmed in some fashion, maybe even killed. That loss does not bring back their loved one, it does not heal a wound. It just creates another ripple in the universe.
I think we spend a lot of time blaming other people for our own problems, and we think that if those individuals face some unnamed consequence, it will somehow be an answer to those problems. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I don’t agree. And I think it’s this very tactic that politicians and influencers use to sway people to adhere to the kind of thinking that is dangerous and divisive.
I think when we lean into the notion that all of our problems could be solved if only we could have this one person do x, we end up in a very counterproductive spiral. When we finally deport as many immigrants as they can get their hands on, will there be cheaper food and more affordable healthcare and an abundance of job opportunities that were not previously available?
I’m here to let you in on a secret: No.
If we stop hiring diverse candidates, will all industry improve?
Um, no. I don’t even need the statistics. That’s just sexist and racist and absurd.
You get the drift.
I’m tired because people are being really terrible. I’m tired because I think we can do better. I’m tired because there’s another way. I’m tired because even my exercises in gratitude aren’t resetting me.
But I’m okay because despite all of this, I still have hope.
We’ll figure it out. All of us. I’m just hoping it’s together.
X
L.
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