If your echo chamber is similar -- or if it's your life or livelihood that's endangered -- I'm not going to tell you it'll be okay or it will get better. I don't know that. I don't. But I do know a few things you might need to hear right now.
1) Take care of yourself. If you fall apart, nothing else you take in or put out will matter. There is no shame in taking a few days off to cry or laugh or escape. In fact, there may be shame in not doing that.
If you can do nothing else, take care of yourself.— Sam Sykes (@SamSykesSwears) November 10, 2016
If you can do more, take care of someone else.
If you can do more still, keep going.
2) Turn off the Endless Browser of Outrage. I'm in a much better place than I was a month ago, but even I feel the gravity of the downward spiral with each turn of the scroll wheel.
STOP IT. Your life is not in here. It's out there, with friends and family. Nothing here will affect what you do out there, so if the Browser of Outrage is stealing your life, kill it. Take that life back.
This is the most important lesson I learned from my social media break. You're not gonna like it. https://t.co/gRy2ISJQly— Adam Heine (@adamheine) November 1, 2016
3) Love someone. Love everyone. Be nice to nobody in particular. Be the change you want to see in the world.
I mean in real life. You can love people online too, but it's way more effective in real life.
Hate spiked after Brexit, and will likely spike tomorrow in US. Here's a guide to intervening if you witness it. https://t.co/bihY0pvBqP— Jackie Monkiewicz (@jmonkiew) November 9, 2016
4) Do you create? Then create. If you can't create for anything right now, then don't. Create for you. If you can create for a purpose, do that too.
Don't you dare give up.— Alyssa Wong (āŠã ã ã ❀) (@crashwong) November 9, 2016
We need you, your voice, your art, your fire, more than ever.
5) Have a booplesnoot.
When your booplesnoot wants those Spider-Man photos on his desk by 10 AM. pic.twitter.com/aceZR7A0F1— Adam Heine (@adamheine) November 9, 2016
Thanks for being you! All the anxious, sensible, thoughtful, creative and caring parts of you. And the parts I am too tired from jetlag to mention right now.
ReplyDeleteI hope that someday you get to meet Sam Sykes. He is the nicest guy and one of the funniest people I have ever met.
ReplyDeleteI'm still kind of a mess, personally. I get irrationally afraid whenever my children are not in my presence. Or maybe that fear is rational? I don't know.
@Mom: Thank you! I love you, too!
ReplyDelete@Matt: I'd love to meet Sam. He's one of my favorite Twitter people to follow (largely because he usually stays humorous and also he's awake when I'm online).
I do strongly recommend you take a social media break for a while. I mean, assuming your lived experience is similar to mine in that the source of most of your anxiety is from social media rather than what's actually happening. Seriously, FB/Twitter makes everything feel worse.