You may have noticed another of those seismic events last week – President Elect Trump. Don’t worry, this is not going to be a political post, far from it. After Brexit and Trump, I now totally understand why one of the top two subjects to avoid is politics.
Wowsers – have you felt the aftershocks around you? Have you noticed the energy is crazy? Have you noticed there is a lot of anger and fear around? Same thing happened here in the UK when there was Brexit…
I was really lucky that day because I was going off to the cricket, so I spent the day watching sport and having fun; rather than obsessing about the result, the reaction to the result, and trying to work out how I felt amidst other people’s, often very strong, reactions. I was fortunate because I switched off. It was also just before the weekend, when I usually spend way less time online (that weekend, I deliberately stayed offline or was super careful about whose posts I read).
Because when seismic events like this occur, the world pours onto social media to react – often with naked emotion, anger and fear. And we all pick up on this supercharged, icky energy and find ourselves angry or emotional…with feelings that aren’t all our own. Like it or not, believe it or not, we are all affected by the energy of world events and other people’s reactions to them.
So we need to be careful. We need to be aware. We need to remember to switch off, to step away from the madness, to let ourselves feel what we feel (not just what everyone else is feeling), we need to step away from the argument and get our equilibrium back.
That’s hard to do when we’re bombarded with messages from social media (even if some of them are very funny!) and knee jerk reactions masquerading as ‘news’.
It’s important to take tech time off in the normal course of events, but even more so when seismic events occur. Switch off. Disconnect. Take time away from everyone else’s anger and fear and stress.
You are not the news. You are not the reactions of social media…but if you’ve been constantly online over the past week, you might feel like you are. So step away. Remember to switch off. Remember to get back to you. And make your personal peace and equilibrium more important than being connected to the circus playing out on news and social media channels.
People (and news channels) will say what they wish, it is not your job to make them shut up. But by simply switching off and stepping away from news and social media for a while, you get to quiet the noise, get away from the fear and stress, and be an oasis of calm in a mad world.
Because when the world is mad, it doesn’t need more fire…it needs calm. And that peace is better for you, too. So disconnect, give yourself a break from the relentless noise, remember to switch off.
Related Posts
