We Need to Think Through Our Thinking

How we see things can make a huge difference in our outcomes. Our souls - head & heart - can play tricks, and trip us up if we’re not careful.

The world these days is challenging enough - don’t complicate the situation with internal clutter. Anxiety, depression, anger, bitterness... they’re all grit in your gearbox. Don’t get stressed and scattered, making it all harder than it has to be.

Take inventory and understand how your inner workings function. Then begin optimizing them to get better performance. Don’t run yourself ragged, or blindside yourself. Recognize the seriousness of the situation, but let that motivate you to act with more awareness.

Inventory, Discover, and Cultivate Values

We need to sort out the non-negotiables - the things we will not budge on. We must prioritize these things, and let them shape how we approach everything. Is integrity more important than a job? Is truth more important than popularity? Maybe this is the first time you’ve really thought hard about this, and you need to figure out what your values are. Maybe you realize you need to cultivate better values, since what you had is not going to keep you afloat in this storm. Now is the time to figure it out.

Distill these now, and have your understanding settled. Don’t try and figure it out on the fly, or it’s easy to get steamrolled. As we watch what is happening in the world around us, we can work out how we would respond to something similar happening to us. We need to be honest with ourselves about what we would do. Decide what we want our lines in the sand to be, and work at getting steeled to hold those lines.

We Must Adapt, Not Simply Compensate

This requires a shift in thinking. We are in the middle of a major dislocation on what’s normal, and it’s important to strategically bend so we don’t break. In a nutshell, don’t waste resources trying to maintain what was normal yesterday, but not necessary for our priorities. It’s time to simplify and focus.

If we know what we stand for, we don’t want to permanently give up cultural ground in the tsunami of so-called “progress.” BUT - we are well past the place where a fix will be simple or quick. We need to gear up for the long haul. Trying to keep everything in our lives exactly as it was can be a fool’s errand. Focus resources on keeping a roof over your head and food on the table. It eases the pressure when we decide that losing some of the niceties is something we can cope with. For example, holidays can be reconfigured to focus more on special time and togetherness, less on money spent.

Another key priority is health. Learning to make home-cooked meals can save money, and put us in charge of getting healthier ingredients in our bodies. Win/win.

We should not accept anyone’s “new normal,” we should just be flexible as we work our way through this season we’re in. We don’t know how bad it will get, or how long it will last. Don’t freak if circumstances reflow in new ways that are not the final outcome you want. It’s a process. Be flexible, and know that to get to where we need to be, we will have to experience some rerouting. The destination is still on our map. Don’t crash during the detour.

A worthwhile resource on this front is Rod Dreher’s book The Benedict Option. It’s written to Christians, but is applicable to anyone with traditional/conservative values. When it came out, he was criticized for taking a bit of a defeatist tone. After reading it, I think he’s more neutral than that. I benefited from his recommendations to circle the wagons and strengthen what remains. He has lots of big think, as well as practical advice on creating communities of like-minded people. He lays out a map for shifting out of some of high-maintenance living into something better suited to difficult times.

We Are What We Consume

As we are adapting and refocusing around our core values, we need to make sure we’re working to strengthen our position, and not weaken it by weighing ourselves down. So it’s important to be aware that whatever we focus our time and attention on, we make influential in our lives. This plays out in 2 important ways:

1. Consume From Quality Sources
2. Balance Consumption Content

1. Consume From Quality Sources

If you’ve been awake during the last decade, you know that old school, mainstream sources for media, entertainment, education, etc... have all shifted sharply leftward. Don’t let untrusted sources define how you understand the narrative. Of course, no source is perfect, but some are a lot better than others.

While this applies to all information and entertainment, the below will focus on information. Keep in mind though, that entertainment can both slime you with values you don’t agree with, and discourage you with visions of despair. Don’t get programmed.

Important note: Choosing information sources based only on being conservative-leaning is not sufficient. Some, either because they see profit opportunities, or don’t know any better, create distorted material. It can mean playing loose with the facts, or focusing on “red meat” topics designed just to get audiences riled up. There’s plenty to be riled up about, but current events are not pro wrestling. Get the intel you need, don’t waste time playing fanboy.

Another consideration - there is some high-level crazy afoot these days such that real news and conspiracy theory don’t always have a clear line between them. I can personally tolerate a certain level of speculation, since sometimes you need to connect the dots to see the picture. Your mileage may vary.

Here are a few resource I have found useful:

• Steve Bannon’s War Room

  You likely already know this one, but some don’t, so I want to mention it. Bannon was an editor at Breitbart, and was Trump’s chief strategist at the White House. He gets some great interviews and insider knowledge.

• American Greatness

  American Greatness is a solid source for well written “big think” pieces from a conservative perspective. This is a strong addition that glues together all of the what from news, using the why of experience.

• Sharyl Attkisson

  Investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson was formerly with CBS, but was forced out after she refused to back off of the Fast & Furious and Benghazi scandals. She even has a book about how the Feds hacked and spied on her. She continues to do real, independent investigation, and has a regular show called Full Measure.

• John Zmirak

  Senior editor at the Stream.org news and opinion site, Zmirak specializes in witty, incisive opinion pieces argued and written with great clarity.

• The Epoch Times

  The Epoch Times consistently delves into the issues with balanced, detailed, and well written pieces. They continue to be a fount of solid information in the midst of chaos. Some of their content is for subscribers only, but a lot is available to the public if you just create a free account. I also recommend the excellent short documentary work where they do deep dives on current news - found on Epoch TV.

• Facts Matter - Roman Balmakov

  Roman is with The Epoch Times, but I call him out specially, since he is always on top of the latest stories, with a hawkish eye for truth. His show on YouTube is a constant source of good info.

• Clarice Feldman

  As a retired federal prosecutor, Clarice scours the news, curating a feed of informative and insightful pieces. Her feed is often a great source to get “the rest of the story” when the fake news is in overdrive. She also writes a weekly column on American Thinker.

• Ice Age Farmer on Telegram

  This fellow expects a global collapse, and encourages people to grow their own food. Take that bias as you will. He posts a lot of items tracking stories about the food supply chain.

2. Balance Consumption Content

Make sure that in the middle of all the madness, you preserve your own well-being. It’s easy to get completely overwhelmed by everything that’s happening. I’ve been there myself more than once. More people are coming out and addressing this issue of late, and it’s important to heed the warnings.

There are two main ways this issue wreaks havoc in our lives:

1. Obsessing over what’s happening
2. Obsessing over what might be happening/could happen

We are in difficult times. The goings on that we know for a verifiable fact are crushing in their weightiness. Sticking to just what we’re certain of, it’s easy to get buried in the avalanche, and feel a heavy load bearing down on us. This can manifest as depression and hopelessness. If you see yourself going there, it’s critical to pull back, and invest time in things that are life-giving. The best place to start is by laying a spiritual foundation. From there, make sure you are investing in good relationships. Then, spend time with a good book, a movie, some music, a walk in nature, or anything that reminds you of truth, beauty, and goodness - so you can remember what we’re all in this to preserve.

In our quest to stay informed, it’s easy to get into the depression/anxiety addiction spiral, where we just end up doom scrolling all the time. Seeing what’s happening makes us feel heavy and anxious, so we feel a need to feed on more bad news both as a reflection of how we feel, and as a way to ease anxiousness by trying to stay out in front of what’s unfolding. Stay informed, but watch your gauges.

A lot of people are getting caught up in speculation about things we don’t know for sure. Speculation is necessary, so that you can plan and not get caught unaware, but the wilder our speculation, the more anxious it can make us... Plus, it makes no sense to wear yourself out over what could be nothing but people’s paranoia. This is an important balance. Don’t wait until everything is triple confirmed in order to even consider it, but also don’t invest thoughts and feelings too much into anything that is currently just vapor. Sensible speculation - like the idea that we could have food supply problems, macroeconomic issues, or civil unrest are reasonable. Lying awake at 3AM worrying about how everyone is a secret reptilian... is not.

Optimizing Our Soul States

We need to always keep an eye on how we’re doing internally. Get the necessary input, but limit it. Take little vacations from the news. Realize we don’t have to follow, or have an opinion on, everything that’s happening.

Make sure we’re getting good sleep. Defend this, because it’s so important. Poor or reduced sleep can throw you into a foggy, depressed state like few things can.

Stay in contact with people - whether in our own household, or among our friends (actual, not just soc med friends). Interaction with other humans (better on the phone than soc med, better in person than the phone) has a proven, restorative effect on brain functioning.

Practice gratitude. We musn’t get our perspectives inverted where we can only see the negative. We need to take stock of what we are thankful for, starting with just being alive. This is a great practice for your spiritual walk as well.

Finally, a great way to cultivate mental health is to look for and act on opportunities where we can help and encourage others. Everyone is going through something. Find how you can tangibly improve someone’s situation by offering a hand, teaching them something, or otherwise contributing. This not only helps in your life, but makes the world around us a better place.