this post was submitted on 19 Jul 2023
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Why bother? Don't bother! What can you do about climate change? What can you do about animals going extinct? What can you do about the economy?
Nothing!
So if you can't do anything about it, it's not worth fretting about. You should worry about your life! Care for your family. Care for your friends. Do your best at school or work. Try to grow in life by learning new things. Try to gain as many new experiences as you can. Set a goal (not too big) and work towards that. Set a new goal and work towards that.
The point I'm trying to make is to stop worrying about the big problems in the world and focus on the little things, because the little things are what matter. You can still support Greenpeace or XR, you can vote, you can donate, but there's not much more you can do. If you waste your life worrying about things you can't influence and wither away in depression, everybody looses.
/r/FoundTheStoic
Sorry, old habits from Reddit. I agree with you. This is one great thing I learnt from stoicism and is a great approach in life. It doesn’t mean to become an ignorant about global issues or don’t care at all, it means to focus on what you can do in your life to help or to have a good life:
Can you fix global warming? Not alone. Then, don’t worry about it in your day life. But, what can you do to help? Can you reduce or stop using plastic bags? Then do it. Have you the money to buy an electric car? Then do it. If not, don’t worry about it until you can.
Stoicism for me is also a great tool to reduce a big problem I can’t solve into smaller actionable problems I may be able to solve and helps me focus on them. It truly helps you to reduce stress about big problems.
I seem to hear more and more about stoicism lately. I might check it out sometime.
I went down the rabbit hole of stoicism 15 years ago when I had a lot of existential anxiety and while it didn’t miraculously help, it really did nudge me into a new path over time.
Small things like not focussing on happiness as a goal, having a momento mori around and taking the time to stop and think about its meaning when I’m overthinking. Doing the negative visualizations on rough days.
It’s more than a philosophy. It’s a good self help tool to have in your tool belt.
I'm with this guy. Do what I can to help, and carry on with my own agenda. Can't control something? It is what it is. I wasted a few years of life worrying about the world as a whole when I should have been focusing on my own little bubble.