Some things I believe to be true.
A handful of the things that lingered in my mind last year—things I believe to be both true and important. Each of these topics deserves a deep dive, but this is merely a summary of my thoughts.
Reactivity is always bad, but suppression is worse.
Most of the time, when we're (physically, but more importantly, emotionally) impacted by something, we either don't hold back or we keep it inside to avoid causing conflict or hurting someone's feelings. In both instances, we cause harm to ourselves and others, ultimately allowing feelings to fester into an unimaginable beast. Neither of these routes allows us to speak our truth.
When we react, it's because something catches us off guard. We respond as quickly as possible, fueled by our heightened emotions before we've had a chance to gather or digest all the context. Ideally, we'd be so in tune with ourselves and our surroundings that we wouldn't find ourselves in a position with the possibility for reactivity. But life doesn’t work that way.
Since we can't avoid these moments entirely, our best option is to pause. Take a breath. Listen. If we have all the context, we can respond. If we don’t—or if we feel our emotions taking over—we can take a longer pause. Maybe until tomorrow. But never long enough for it to turn into something unspoken and unresolved.
Granting people the opportunity for slowness is the most generous gift.
In a world that's asking so much of us - demanding our attention every waking second and more -, giving people the time and space to be slow is not only generous but needed more than ever.
Consistency makes ugly digestible.
Consistency transforms ugly truths into manageable realities, this can be both positive and negative. On one hand, perhaps there's something about ourselves that's been labeled undesirable (by ourselves or others) but just a part of the way we operate. Thinking of those of us always late. Being late all the time is certainly a problem, but being consistently 10 minutes late is less so. Most people can adapt to a predictable delay; the real frustration stems from uncertainty—the evil twin of consistency.
On the other hand, consistency can also be used to neutralize personal and societal non-negotiables, dulling the importance of things that demand attention or accountability. We see this with the news: when the same stories, the same horrors, are repeated consistently, especially with ridgid narratives, they begin to lose their impact.
Speaking of...
The news, is not the news.
I'll preface this by saying that I'm talking about big news here, traditional news, what most of us would consider "the news".
If a very small handful of people (three, in the case of 90% of printed news [1]) are making absurd amounts of money by the constant broadcasting of worldwide suffering, is it really news? Would it be selfish to stop watching it, or is it selfish to watch it, line these peoples pockets, and then (often) go about our days believing we're well informed?
In addition to the above, the news gives us one narrative about a handful of events which it deems most important. To say it's "the news" gives the impression of completeness, of absolute, but it's probably not even 10% of the important things happening around the world. As a rather bleak example: How many wars are going on right now? I'd like to think nearly everyone is aware of at least 2, but what about 5, or 10, 20, how about 40? Well, it's 42. 42 countries are currently at war [2]. - And if you think they're maybe just talking about the biggest ones (as if the smaller ones are any less important?), tell that to Ethiopia.
Neutral defaults to negative.
Very much what it says on the tin: if you're neutral about something, chances are you'll be automatically enrolled into the negative and/or evil—across all contexts. This doesn't mean you need to verbally communicate your beliefs 100% of the time, but if you opt into what you truly believe, you'll live it out through your being. This applies just as much to your health and fitness as it does to your political stance.
Not being okay is not okay - and that's okay.
The phrase "It's okay not to be okay" helps remove shame from those who are struggling, but an unintended side effect is that we've started to normalize and minimize anxiety, depression, and other struggles. The truth is, sometimes not being okay really isn’t okay. Now there's a vastly better awareness of mental health (although more is still need), we need to move the conversation forwards, Learn how to have more meaningful conversations, and setup tagible support.
[1] https://pressgazette.co.uk/media-audience-and-business-data/media_metrics/who-owns-the-news-uk-news-media-owbership-analysed/
[2] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/countries-currently-at-war