I Can't Keep Up
Given the time of day, what is it that I need to know? What is it useful to know? What do I want you to know? What do I not want to know? What do others want me to know? What do others tend to insist I be aware of? What do I tend to want to (or do) push back on because I would prefer not to know more than I already do?
How do we bend the universe towards our whims?
Well, it's not easy.
There are elements of self-fulfilling prophecy.
Returning our attention to times of day. There is always a time and a place, right? And, when it comes down to it, we prefer a need-to-know basis to an onslaught of information.
Our information systems are polluted, over-saturated, rife with clickbait, irrelevance, misinformation, and a thousand ways to amuse ourselves to death.
What is to be done?
Begin by reflecting on times of day when you do and do not want to be bothered with certain burdens that result in unnecessary anxiety, stress, upset, destabilization, distress, or that vague sense of unease that tends to come with a kind of existential dread.
A problem is these burdens can cause us to become activated or triggered. Information overload is not required for these negative effects. It could be more about timing.
Since who knows when, people have said things like, "Don't talk to me before I've had my morning coffee." But now, we wake up and reach for our phone.
We constantly reach for devices for sources of information, amusement, distraction, connection, and basically solve that empty feeling. It's not necessarily an addiction for all of us but we can agree engagement with our tech and screens is habit forming.
As in many aspects of life, this comes down to boundaries.
Where do we draw the line?
When do we say enough is enough?
We can choose when we want to engage with content.
To an extent, we can choose when we want to communicate with others.
To an extent, we can decide what we want to know about what is happening in our frenetic maddening world. And we can try if we wish to determine what is important for us to keep tabs on and what is not urgent or required.
Frustratingly, aside from setting boundaries, this also comes down to us giving ourselves permission to make choices that we might feel guilty about.
Other people are never happy when you set boundaries because it's as if you made a choice on their behalf. After all, it does affect them. But the choice really is yours and if people truly care about you and your wellbeing they will learn to live with boundaries.
Similarly, once you begin to shape your day-to-day around your media and content consumption, you take back power over your time and emotional states.
My day relies on time management of blood glucose measurement and short-acting insulin injections which have to be so many hours apart. I get overwhelmed by this, especially like yesterday, when I was on Zoom from 4-6 and 6-9. Since I couldn't eat dinner until after 9, I had to stay awake until 1 for another measurement and injection. I revised an essay about my autoimmune condition that makes all these injections necessary.
Right now so many of us are overwhelmed. I'm struggling with first world issues, like getting our house plans done, getting our real estate attorney to let go of the contract we gave him 5 freaking weeks ago so our builder doesn't finally say: I've had it with you guys. Because we need to get going (and this house is being built 2+ hours away in another state). Getting our small, but important mortgage approved before rates increase again, keeping my diabetic 16 yr. old cat alive, keeping the hubby from losing his mind and staying happy, keeping myself healthy and getting to physical therapy over electric shocks in my leg while I still don't know the cause--and struggling with my writing while trying to do this house. Some days I do zero, but I hate feeling inactive and so that's my rant right now. I'm really pissed at my body. :-0 Social media comes last.