This time in our history has been trying. The information that is inundating us about one subject that has overtaken every aspect of our lives is placing untold amounts of stress on everyone.
A problem arises out of this. Wanting to be right. I am not talking about being informed, which of course we all must be. I am talking about the fact that I have come to the realization that humans just love to be right.
Diligently, they read whatever research, newspaper, media they prefer to believe (because that seems to be how divided we all are right now) and then arm themselves with all the “official” information they need to be right. I think it comes out of a great need to also be good and just.
One thing that arises out of this is that there is always most certainly there is an opposing position and a wider point of view to be considered. But the human animal and it’s sense of rightness really wants to take all that information it has gathered to be right, to be correct, to leave no doubt and to do it with absolute certainty.
The thing is, in the ever-changing daily landscape we are dealing with, combined with the amount of information, it is virtually impossible to keep up. Things are missed, buried and outright cancelled.
The created situation itself becomes the stressor, more than the thing that we are all stressing about (the thing I do not even need to name because your mind is naming it for me).
So, what to do? That’s what the title of this article is all about.
Making sense of a non-sensical situation that is for all intents and purposes impossible to follow. So just stop trying to make sense of what can not make sense for the moment and return to gathering up your mind and thoughts in a place that is healthier for you and all of the people around you.
Your “research” or your “being informed” (overly informed) is feeding the flame that is creating the fire in our lives. We are witnessing the very worst about the human tendencies to want to understand, know more, survive and “be right”.
Whatever is to be known about this whole situation has not yet been revealed.
Whatever is to be known is actually being lost in the confusion of it all, a tactic of knowing so much that you come to realize that you know nothing.
It does not hurt you to be in a space of receiving and allowing information to gravitate to you naturally as it did before a time we became electronically addicted to a “smart” phone (a phone used to be a device for conversations, remember?)
There is nothing smart about a smartphone. It’s a device that is dumbing us down, giving us a dopamine hit and steering us to apathy and non-intelligence. What used to be an intimate gathering of people at a dinner, for example, has become people with their “date”,a smartphone, on the table with access to 1.7 billion people and enough useless data to create a millenium of trivial pursuits.
How can our very ego resist the temptation to survive, feel safe and be right?
One suggestion is to step away.
When you’ve finished reading this article put your phone down for the next two hours. Find something else to focus on. Be the change you want to see in the world. Love some body. Look up and say hello. Unplug. Relax.
Understand that it’s not anything you can make sense of and this will set you free. Free your mind and open your senses. The gift of life you have been given is being eroded by senseless and overflowing data. Data you can not process and have no reason to take in.
Try it. Test yourself. See how long you can go. Allow your next bit of news to come organically from a person you know. Turn off the judgement and listen, hear, find out what everyone needs for themselves and have a tremendous amount of respect for yourself for being able to be that way — even for a moment.