Everything just seems so out of control. The US seems to be tearing itself apart. The world is on fire. We seem to be going backwards when it comes to freedom and human rights. We’ve turned our backs on each other. How do you cope with all this without just giving up?

  • Weslee@lemmy.worldEnglish
    454·
    2 years ago

    Don’t spend all your time reading news, they are purposely negative because it generates more interest and money, don’t take everything you read as truth.

    99% of these problems won’t turn into anything other than a faded memory.

    End of the day, nothing you can do will change what’s happening half way across the world, so why let it change you?

    • paddirn@lemmy.worldEnglish
      5·
      2 years ago

      Also, a large part of it I’m assuming is driven by the upcoming US presidential election and a certain ongoing conflict in the world. There is at least one country that benefits from an increase in general chaos and uncertainty in the world. It divides Western military attention and increases discontent and anxiety in Western countries. Alot of our recent problems all lead back to Russia being a general force for chaos in the world, they stand to benefit the most from it.

    • idunnololz@lemmy.world
      22·
      2 years ago

      Not just news but social media (yes that includes Lemmy). Generally anything that invokes some strong emotions will get up votes.

      • workerONE@lemmy.world
        12·
        2 years ago

        The United States has been overthrowing democratically elected governments for a hundred years. The CIA has exported terrorism, trained gorilla soldiers to terrorize and torture civilians, and promoted fascism over democracy. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change

        We have a war on drugs that is really a war on people, an excuse to target people of color. We have a for profit prison system run by private corporations that lobby politicians in what is effectively legal bribery. Our entire economic system, capitalism, allows those with wealth to exploit those without, and to use their power and money to “lobby” politicians. People are never going to get a fair shake.

        Edit: The US has amazing people and so much potential to survive and overcome our problems, but there’s a darkness that motivates people in power, maybe it’s fear of communism or fear of powerlessness, idk

  • Paragone@lemmy.world
    172·
    2 years ago

    Focus:

    Exactly as Stephen R. Covey pointed-out, in “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families”

    https://www.amazon.com/Habits-Effective-Families-Revised-Updated/dp/1250857775/

    You have a Circle-of-Concern: all the things you attach your awareness on,

    and you also have a Circle-of-Influence: all the things you actually can alter.

    Since the bigger your Circle-of-Concern, the LESS life-energy you have for your Circle-of-Influence, therefore you need to deliberately reduce your Circle-of-Concern, in order to expand your Circle-of-influence.

    That’s it: it’s that simple.

    Deny awareness-vampire processes your lifeblood.

    Own your own self, more, & use that self-owning in order to make your portion of the world more-healthy.

    Just because mass-media did all it could to make one boundaryless, helplessly stuck in consuming-trance, bedazzled & led-along like steers the industry is bringing into the abbatoir, doesn’t mean that you or I agreed to our lives doing/being only that, does it?

    We never agreed.

    It is our right to break the “agreement” that our childhoods were signed-into, before we could do any considered-reasoning.

    Either we have the guts & gall to do it, or our-lives are consumed by the “machine” that exists only for sake of its own transient profit-sensations.

    Owning one’s own life is a right.

    _ /\ _

  • tty5@lemmy.world
    14·
    2 years ago

    I gave up on everyone: I’ve packed my shit and moved back to the EU, to a middle of nowhere, population 50. Closest neighbor is a 10 minute walk away. Started a large garden, learned some blacksmithing and basic carpentry. Still working remotely for the same company as before, but now when I go outside I have fresh air, I can see the stars and I can hear nobody.

      • tty5@lemmy.world
        4·
        2 years ago

        It mostly is, but it has it’s drawbacks:

        • if I don’t feel like cooking I don’t have an option of ordering a pizza or eating out - I’m outside of delivery range of everything
        • closest town has limited choice of everything. I have to get everything shipped or drive for 1.5h.
        • anything but essential services is more than half an hour away

        also you end up thinking weird thoughts few people have before: e.g. “how do I stop moose from trampling my garlic?” I mean how many people throughout human history had pondered that? ;-)

  • Rylyshar@lemmy.worldEnglish
    10·
    2 years ago

    Part of it is the mantra “out of my control, out of my concern.” Or “not my circus, not my monkeys.” That doesn’t mean I don’t care. It means I do what I can do, and try not to despair about what I can’t change.

  • Ainiriand@lemmy.world
    6·
    2 years ago

    I just don’t read news and I try to focus on my own life instead. Try to put social media to minimum/

  • MrFunnyMoustache@lemmy.ml
    6·
    2 years ago

    By dedicating a certain amount of time for things I enjoy while pretending that the world outside doesn’t exist. That time when I watch an anime, or read a book, or write fanfiction, or cook something delicious… that keeps me sane, it keeps me from falling back on my natural tendency to focus on all the bad things and ignore the good in the world.

    You cannot allow yourself to be in that “constant stress” because it wears you down and grinds your sanity and willpower like a big belt sander.

    That timeout revitalises me, and gives me the balance to deal with the stresses and worries about everything else.

    Obviously there isn’t a silver bullet, and mindfulness is probably the best bet here.

  • Canopyflyer@lemmy.worldEnglish
    93·
    2 years ago

    Keep in mind that American news is not really news. It’s strictly entertainment and you should treat it as such. FOX, MSNBC, CNN are all for profit enterprises and they are completely focused on that and nothing else. That asshole fuck face that owns FOX even admitted it in court under oath.

    So instead of informing the public, these entities present “news” in a way that is designed to make you emotionally react, give you a dopamine hit, instead of actually informing you of anything. Are some worse than others? Yes, but all of them do it to some degree or another. I personally believe that the down fall of this country will eventually be tracked to the elimination of equal time laws and the limits of entities owning media outlets. It used to be a single entity could not own more than 11 broadcast stations. Those laws need to come back and it’s an absolute emergency that they do.

    To sum up the above: You are constantly being manipulated by the media you watch to make you feel that things are a lot worse than they really are, so some asshole somewhere can make more money. Yes, your feeling of things being out of control is only because some fuck face is making money from you feeling that way.

    My suggestion is do not watch TV for your news. Read. If you want to learn about American politics, read a foreign newspaper that comes from a country that really doesn’t have a lot of skin in American Politics. Better yet, get involved in your local political scene and make yourself a part of the news cycle.

    • Meuzzin@lemmy.world
      2·
      2 years ago

      I’d argue that the only fairly accurate source of news, in America atleast, is non-profit, publicly funded. PBS, NPR, etc.

      For example, NPR will do a hit piece on Amazon, even though Amazon is an underwriter for NPR.