Step Away From The Doom and Gloom
The choice to live in a world of doom and gloom is yours.
Social media is the ultimate distraction. Even science tells us that social media has been specifically designed to grab our attention in unhealthy, addictive ways.
On the one hand, social media can be a great way to keep in touch with friends. On the other hand, it’s a deluge of information, outrage, fear, and unchecked consumerism. I think social media is shortening our collective attention span and creating surreal levels of fear to keep us all doomscrolling.
Keep in mind, in no way am I downplaying or denying that some pretty awful, horrific shit is happening out there. The Russian invasion of Ukraine, the nastiness of the Israel/Palestine conflict, the protection of pedophiles, the presidential madness, and the persecution of immigrants and anyone not sufficiently white in the USA are terrifying, horrifying, and unacceptable.
Yet when you focus exclusively on the doom and gloom, what does that do? It makes you sad, angry, depressed, hopeless, and worse. The doom and gloom distracts you. When you get distracted, you become disempowered.
What does it mean to be disempowered?
Disempowerment means you cede your self-sovereignty to other forces, influencers, and the like. When you’re disempowered, you feel powerless and as if you control nothing.
They oft-cited “they” love when you’re disempowered. Why? Because then they can more easily persuade you to buy their goods and services, follow their programs, and let them guide you. Is there any other explanation for how cults are formed? The disempowered, those who feel left out or otherwise lost, let someone else tell them what’s good for them.
Sound familiar? Advertisers love disempowered people because it gives them the ultimate sales platform. Feel lonely? Buy this product, and you will draw people to you. Do you think you’re fat and unwanted? But this diet program, and you’ll fix all your woes without any effort. Want to be better than him/her/them? Buy this to make the right impression.
I’m not saying all products and services are bad for us. That art you buy for the wall that speaks to and inspires you can lead to empowerment. The issue I have is when people believe the only solutions are outside of themselves and must be purchased. Therapy can be super useful, but eating your feelings and running up huge debt to cope has consequences.
When you focus on the doom and gloom, you are open to being disempowered.
It’s not all doom and gloom
Again, shit’s happening in the world. There’s no denying that. And you might also have problems and challenges in your life right now. I don’t know you. But you’re here, now, alive. That means you can make choices and decisions to alter your life.
Unfortunately, we are sold lots of quick-fix, one-and-done, instant-gratification solutions. The trouble is that most are steps in a process at best, not the end-all be-all. The GLP-1 drugs can help you lose weight, but they work way better and more effectively when you mind your diet and exercise, too.
For the most part, there isn’t a damned thing you can do about the shit happening in the world at large. You can vote in elections, attend protests, write essays and blogs to sway hearts and minds, boycott terrible businesses, bombard your congresspeople with emails, letters, and calls; and that’s about it.
Constantly doomscrolling social media, watching any news network for more than a minute or two, and sharing every terrible thing you find with friends helps nobody. Yes, I’m all for being in the know, but there’s a difference between being aware and being inundated. Dig deep, you will believe that doom and gloom is all that there is in the world.
But it’s not. How do I know this? Because people are having babies, getting married, celebrating milestones, starting businesses, inventing new products to make life better, finishing novels, falling in love, buying dream homes, making new friends, visiting new places, discovering wonders, and anything else good you can think of.
It’s not all doom and gloom because there is always bad and good. Yin and Yang. Up and down. Happy and sad. That’s the nature of life, the universe, and everything.
The choice is yours
Do you know why I write about nontoxic positivity every Monday? Because when I started doing this some 12 years ago, I was bombarded by negativity across social media. Scrolling through my friends’ posts, I saw more negativity than anything else. Some were benign, whining about the end of the weekend and the start of the workweek. Some were more personal, expounding on challenges with coworkers, lovers, families, and other issues they were having. All in all, it was a ton of doom and gloom.
In response, I began to look for positivity to share with people. And I immediately came up against toxic positivity. Toxic positivity denies, disregards, and puts blinders on regarding negativity. Nontoxic positivity, on the other hand, recognizes that negativity is not something you can pretend doesn’t exist, but that you can choose to turn away from.
When you choose to doomscroll social media, spend an hour watching Fox News, CNN, or the like, you’re overwhelming yourself in doom and gloom. And that’s a choice, because you can spend less time on social media, not watch new channels for more than the general info you need, and focus on what’s good and positive in the world and in your life.
Shit happens. Bad things are unavoidable in life for anyone. However, you choose if you will seek out more doom and gloom and let that decide your life experience. Or if you can look for nontoxic positivity and the empowerment that comes of it.
Doom and gloom is a choice you make
Consciously aware choices and decisions on your part empower you. That’s because you assume control of your thoughts, feelings, intentions, approach, and actions. That puts you in control of your mind, body, and spirit, which only you know and can control. Hence, you thus become empowered.
Doom and gloom is a choice. Torturing and disempowering yourself by choosing doom and gloom helps nobody, least of all you. Thus, it’s up to you to look for nontoxic positives or keep your eyes on the negatives and increase that feeling of being disempowered. Why do that to yourself when you can choose ways to be empowered?
Stepping away from doom and gloom isn’t hard
It’s all about practicing active conscious awareness (mindfulness) of your thoughts, feelings, intentions, and the positivity or negativity of your approach to direct your actions.
When you recognize and acknowledge that you choose to be bombarded by doom and gloom, and that this disempowers you, you can change it. Knowing that you are the only one who can ultimately decide who, what, where, how, and why you are, you can choose and decide to seek nontoxic positivity and not let doom and gloom rule your life or dictate how you live it.
This empowers you, and your empowerment can, in turn, empower others around you.
Consciously choosing your approach to life towards positivity or negativity — from the vast cylinder that exists between them — shifts life in a way that opens greater dialogue. From that dialogue, you can recognize, explore, and share where you are between the extremes and how that impacts you here and now.
Choosing thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions for yourself opens the way for a positive approach and attitude via your actions. This can lead to realizing amazing potential and possibilities for your life.
The better aware you are of yourself, here and now, the better you can choose and decide what, how, and why your life experiences will be. When you empower yourself, it can spread to those around you and empower them as well. That is an amazing conduit to help reason to overcome fear in the collective consciousness.
Thank you for coming along on this journey.
This is the six-hundred-twenty-eighth (628) entry of my Positivity series. I hope that these weekly messages might help spread positive energies for everyone. Feel free to share, reblog, and spread the positivity.
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