The world is a mess right now.
It feels like we’re one disaster away from a meltdown. If you switch on the news, it’s full of fighting. David versus Goliath. We can often feel like we’re taking on the might of the world and fighting the good fight.
The Internet is full of the same. Trump stories, Democrat stories, liberals, conservatives, all fighting each other, each person feeling like they are the winner in a never-ending battle for the right to make the world peaceful again.
And yet here we are, in the middle of it all, near the end of our sanity, feeling as if we continue, maybe if we help that little bit more, we can help someone — somewhere.
I feel it. This was me last year. I felt like the world was closing in on me.
Not in a paranoid sense, but I was feeling I had to save the world from its sins; I wanted to help people that needed help, I wanted to protect people that needed protecting, and I wanted to fight the good fight. Always something, never-ending.
You see, I’m a very empathetic man. When people hurt, I hurt too. When the world bleeds, I bleed too.
When I’m in a room and the emotional temperature changes a fraction — yeah, I feel that too. So, when the world is taking one big giant turd on me, I can pretty much feel that with all my heart.
And goddammit these people that don’t agree with me that the world needs to be helped. They don’t want to be helped, I could never understand that, why they would actually want to push back against my notion of fighting a good fight for other people in need. I wanted to fight against them,
And fight against them I did.
But you know what happened? I eventually burned myself out. It got to the point that I felt like I was burning the candle at both ends and by god I didn’t feel too great. This fighting and worry had to ease off somehow.
So, I did what any sane person would do. I switched off my Facebook, left my mobile phone at home and refused to watch any kind of news coverage over two or so weeks. Of course, I used Facebook for business, so I limited my connection to it via messenger. And wow, did something brilliant and beautiful happen.
First of all, it was quiet. The worry and the stress of being bombarded with media that hypes me up was non-existent. I had refused to watch any sort of news coverage whatsoever as I was in detox, so there were no fighting the good fight articles to come across. I kept my internet use purely for work-related stuff and non-recreational.
I looked out the door and apart from a few cars driving past it was relatively quiet. No feeling like I had to go out and march against racists, and nobody taking what I said the wrong way or out of context, because in person is far more streamlined than asynchronous chat.
That detox was the best thing that ever happened to me. I didn’t realize how so far into my own bubble I had retreated — talking with the same people, sharing the same stories, and assuming things about people I had never met. I had become the type of person I hated and social media had helped me become that person. If you don’t see much of me these days, this is your answer as to why.
I’m an autistic man, and an empath, I take this stuff really seriously and it hurts me horribly inside. I’m not going to play that game any longer. The world won’t miss one person with a savior complex. There are many already fighting that fight for me.
Take a break. Ditch your technology and go for a picnic with the family. Take them to see a movie.
Do something.
Just don’t suffer this social media stuff any longer. Don’t take on other people’s problems. Don’t get sucked into it either.
Draw back.
Think about yourself. Think about your family (if you have one).
You’ll never be able to take care of anyone else if you can’t even take care of yourself
Concentrate on your micro-environment and your macro-environment will look better.
And if you’re like me and want to help, then do it locally. Go and start up a group and bring love to people that wouldn’t normally get love. Teach a kid a new skill. Be a talking companion for a lonely woman.
Whatever you do, do it with compassion and that will flow through everyone else as it has done you.
Love is where it starts and where it ends. You don’t help people by stroking them negatively and isolating them. You help people by teaching them stuff to live a better life and doing it with love and care.
That’s how I was taught. That’s how I grew. That’s how I healed.
They came to me and looked at what I could offer and reached into my heart and pulled those skills out and shone them like a diamond — and told me,
“Here, look at this diamond! That’s you that is Raymond. Amazing, isn’t it? You’re amazing”
And from there I grew from strength to strength
So, if you’re feeling the hard weight of the world bearing down on your shoulders because it feels like nothing is being done right, pull back.
Pull back from the technology, mobile phones, TV and the tabs. Just use them as little as you can — and go and discover the community again. Walk outside, listen to the peacefulness. It’s honestly not as bad as you think.
Just..
Take care of yourself!
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