I Promise I Am Not Trying To Distract You Today

Taking a deep breath or two.

Hello!

At least half of you will be awaiting the results of an important election right now, in a state of anxiety ranging from ‘Yikes’ to ‘That Family-Gathering Episode Of The Bear’.

Much is still uncertain, but two things will undoubtedly remain true:

1. This is an incredibly important election for bucketloads of reasons.

2. The televised & online coverage of it is going to be so intensely oversaturated that this Onion News Network sketch has to go hard to turn it into a recognisable parody:

Needless to say, if you’re feeling anxious, watching that stuff every minute of the day isn’t going to help … but you’re probably still going to do a bit of it, let’s face it.

Since that’s the case, here are a few quick tips - starting with my favourite of all the recent “how to keep it together” advice-splainers of recent weeks:

“…we could follow the advice of the poet David Whyte, who writes: “Start close in. Don’t take the second step or the third, start with the first thing close in… start with the ground you know, the pale ground beneath your feet.” The “inner move” involved here isn’t so much one of detaching, or even surrendering, but rather of gathering in your energies, collecting your strength, feeling confident in the solidity of the rock on which you’re standing.

And a big part of the reason for this gathering-in, to be clear, is to do stuff. To act. Not just to kick back and relax (though there’s a place for that), to convince yourself that everything outside the here and now is irrelevant, or to chill out while the world burns. It’s not even about lowering your ambitions. From this limited human position – in which you’re only ever here; in which only the present exists; and in which it’s only ever possible to take the next action – it’s perfectly possible to accomplish the most impressive, admirable, or difference-making things that were ever on the cards for you to begin with.

In fact, I’d go further: it’s the only position from which anything good, or indeed anything at all, has ever been done. By anyone. Ever.”

- “How not to freak out about the US election” - Oliver Burkman, author of the bestselling Four Thousand Weeks

Secondly: to borrow wisdom from

Katherine May

, instead of distracting yourself, ground yourself:

How to feel grounded

(My own version of this is going for a walk long enough to blast through the best part of an audiobook.)

This also includes stuff as basic as drinking enough water, as my other half notes here:

You're Not Drinking Enough Water

(This is important because dehydration amplifies anxiety!)

And if you’re like me & you’d rather mute all your Frantic Bite-Sized Hot-Take Machines and actually read things until the noise has reduced to tolerable levels, my friend

Jodi Ettenberg

has you covered…

The Curious About Everything Newsletter #44

…and I’ll also recommend to you the following two thoroughly engrossing books that will give you plenty to think about:

1. Some Of Our Parts by

   Laura Kennedy
   : [Blackwells / Amazon / Audible]

2. Ultra-Something by

   Brendan Leonard
   : [Bookshop / Amazon / Audible]

Ta. See you when all this dust settles.

- Mike