Why I Don’t Engage in the Outrage Cycle
It’s no secret that most of what we read on the internet today—especially on social media—is an ego-driven reaction to whatever is happening.
Without training and effort, most people never truly distinguish between what is actually happening and the automatic meaning they attach to it. This is only human. Here’s an example:
- A mother tells her child to redo their homework. The child thinks (and remembers), Mom thinks I’m not good enough.
At a young age, we don’t have the ability to self-reflect and realize that all Mom said was to redo the homework. Instead, we remember how it made us feel.
There are grown adults who repeat the quote: We don’t remember what people say; we remember how they made us feel. And while that’s true, it’s also worth noting that our feelings can be triggered by a million things that have nothing to do with what someone actually meant.
I make a daily effort not to react but to pause, clear my mind, return to neutral, acknowledge what is, and then choose what I will create.
Let me tell you—it would be so easy to react. It’s not that I don’t see what’s happening. I get aggravated by plenty every day. But I take the time to clear my mind before I share. That doesn’t make me perfect, but it does mean I won’t react to every move of a celebrity, every headline designed to enrage, or every decision made by a president I didn’t vote for and don’t support.
I am not complicit because I am silent. I am silent because I am silent.
For the most part, I don’t binge on content filtered through other people’s opinions—opinions often shaped when they were toddlers. I mind my own self, my family, my children, my friends, and my clients. That’s where my effort goes.
If that’s not enough in your view, so be it. Do more, complain more, do as you will—but I will not join you.
Life has become intense. We’ve gone from being contained and polite to having the technology to share everything—without the ability to process it, make sense of it, and turn it into something meaningful. I won’t contribute to the clutter.
If you read this and feel offended, you are welcome to unfollow or block me—you’d be doing me a favor. I am intentionally pruning what doesn’t work and curating circles that feel nurturing, loving, and kind. Not because I want to live in a fake reality, but because I refuse to react to every bit of craziness we now have access to.
If you, like me, care about what you are creating and don’t want to keep being a reaction queen/king, stay tuned. I’ll do my best to share tools, stories, and posts that inspire and uplift.
Here’s to leaving this world better than we found it.
