We hear people say, “there’s so much going in the world” often, but I don’t think we realize just how much weight that statement carries. It’s not that we’re oblivious to the crazy things happening in this world, or even that we’re not experiencing some of these things ourselves.
We just never pay attention to how impactful the “so much going on” can be to our emotional health.
We wake up in the morning, open our Twitters and learn Kevin Hart is cheating on his pregnant wife, some semi-famous black man doesn’t “prefer” black women, or watch as everyone investigates the horrible Kanneka Jones incident.
And before we know it, within only five minutes, we have felt so many things. We feel sad for Kevin Hart’s wife. We feel angry and embarrassed by that black guy. And we are completely heartbroken by what happened to Kanneka. By the time we’ve finally closed our apps and decided to head out to live our actual lives; we are mentally and emotionally drained. We don’t have any energy left to handle nerves about the tests we have coming up, or patience to deal with petty arguments we may have with our significant others. We find ourselves blowing up and freaking out over every little thing.
Until the day we finally decide to stop giving our peace away.
We stop giving our peace to Trump and his disgusting behaviors. We stop giving our peace to Kim Kardashian wearing cornrows. We stop giving our peace to people and their stupid “preferences”. We stop giving our peace, and we refuse to feel like a bad person because of it.
We have every right to protect our peace.
And that’s not to say we choose to be ignorant. There are things we care about, and things that we pay attention to; but what those things are, are completely up to US.
It is not up to the trending topics, the breaking news, the comment sections on Facebook posts or the viral threads on Twitter. It is not up to anyone but us.
So, if we see an article title and it breaks our hearts a little too much, or if we see a tweet and it makes us a little too angry; it’s okay to keep it scrolling. It’s okay to decide what we will and will not give our energy to.
And trust me, it isn’t always going to be easy. We may still find ourselves wanting to know what everyone is outraged about, what everyone is gossiping about, or what has everyone’s attention at the moment… but as living beings with emotions and feelings…we have to start asking ourselves,