255. Stupid crap

Everything has just felt a little icky this week. It was a mixture of lots of projects at work, an unwelcome turn in the presidential race, the continuation of the presidential race, a (second) rejection from a female that I was fancying, another trip to the DMV, and a mid-week loss for Spurs in the Champions League. By the end of the day today, I was exhausted, and a little queasy.

I really felt like a zombie this afternoon. I didn’t want to be around anyone. I just wanted to go home. I didn’t want to see any political updates. I didn’t want to see opinions from people I didn’t care about.

I gave up Twitter for the week this week. It was one fewer thing I had to worry about. I’m glad I did. I didn’t need to see more takes and opinions from people. The conversation around 2016 has just grown too loud anyway. By that I mean, everyone is just feeding into a negativity and desperateness about this year. Whether it’s been the bevy of celebrity deaths, terrible police shootings, or the crap-filled presidential race, people seem to want to proclaim THAT THIS IS THE WORST THING EVER. There are bad things.

I don’t want to tell people how to feel. False positivity is the only thing worse than negativity. I think it’s just important to step away from things we can’t control. I can’t control the presidential race. Everyone I know has pretty much made up their mind on who they’re going to vote for. I try to listen in delicate conversations about race. I try to understand points of view that are different from mine.

It’s hard. It’s boring. It’s awful. I want to be positive, but I also don’t want to be naive about things that are going on in the world. That’s why I’ve been trying to visualize things more. It sounds weird, and it probably is, but I’ve become slightly happier and more productive because of it. I tell myself that I’m going to go for a run after work. I tell myself that I am going to clean the kitchen after I finish cooking. I tell myself that I am going to just relax and watch soccer for two hours. When I put it in my mind that I am able to and can accomplish different things, I feel better. It feels like I’m allowing myself to be productive and make a claim to my day.

Can I make things all better? I cannot quiet the cacophony of the news. I can step out of it though. I don’t feel any less uniformed since I gave up Twitter. I still probably visit news sites way too often, but I’m shielded from dumb opinions, or smart people acknowledging dumb or whiny opinions. I’m happy because of that. I’m just going to keep doing my job, writing, running, and watching soccer till the election. Sometimes you just need to step out of it all to see how stupid all the crap we worry about really is.