“It takes far less effort to find and move to the society that has what you want than it does to try to reconstruct an existing society to match your standards.”
How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World, by Harry Brown
In a world filled with external distractions it’s crucial to recognize the power of internal focus.
I agree that politics and causes like fighting climate change have an impact on society (regardless of my opinion on those), but in this article I’m explaining why it doesn’t matter TO YOU.
Politics
Are politics important? Sure, for society. Does it matter if X or Y person gets elected for president if they have very different views? Yes, for the country. Is it going to make a significant difference in YOUR life? No.
Unless we are talking about something very specific like if the person X gets elected then the way you make money suddenly becomes illegal (and even then often times that person can’t get anything done and nothing changes) than in that case yes, it’s going to make a difference to you. And in a situation like that I think it’s prudent to be aware of what the candidates and to really listen to the polls and debates in order to figure out if indeed you are going to be affected. But here is the thing: even if you know that the person is going to be elected, what can you do to stop it? Nothing.
There is nothing that you can realistically do to influence that outcome (unless you own a social media company) so the only thing you can do is to take matters in to your own hands: not by protesting if the person X gets elected, but either by: changing the way you make money or simply leaving that country.
And now you say to me: “yeah that’s true, but let’s assume the politicians actually deliver and candidate X lowers taxes by 2% and candidate Y increases it by 2%. In that case it does make a difference to me!”
Can you still something about it? No you can’t. But you are right, it does make a difference.
But here is another thing: how much time did you spent following politics? How much emotional energy did you spend getting angry at politicians being corrupt etc… Do you think that if you spent all that effort into making more money maybe 2% wouldn’t be as big of a deal?
Causes, like fighting climate change
Giving my personal example when it comes to that subject: from around ages 15 to 22 I didn’t eat any meat.
This was because of environmental reasons. I was doing “my part” to help with the situation, but realistically speaking it didn’t make any difference.
I eventually decided to stop with my diet restrictions once I started to understand nutrition better. I felt I “had to” do my part to help solve the problem.
However, looking back, in terms of the actual results it had in my life I would say that worrying about that was overall a negative thing (this is because having made a “radical” change in terms of diet set me up to be able to make big changes in terms of adopting new ways of thinking, so it wasn’t all bad).
News Consumption vs. Personal Growth
The other day I was talking with a family member and I said I didn’t watch the news, and the person responded with “if you don’t watch the news how can you be informed?”
This is the same person that watches the news on TV and reacts with emotion (that negatively affects her mood) to cases of government corruption and stuff like that.
Let’s say the news reporters never lied and never got any factual information wrong (yeah good luck with that). Even in that case, when they reported the government corruption scandal perfectly, when you knew from them exactly everything for you to be “informed” about the situation, what can you DO with that information? Nothing. The only thing you can do is to be upset. I don’t think that’s being informed.
What if you took the time to look at stuff happening in the world that you have no power over and that affects you emotionally, and learn something beneficial to you? Like how to be more productive for example. What if you took the time you would’ve spent watching some news and instead listened to some experts in your field of work talk. I think in that case yes, you would be informed, because that is information you can do something about, to improve your work in this case.
Celebrating Sports Team Victories: The Illusion of External Happiness
Let’s say you are a sports fan, doesn’t matter which sport. Let’s also say that you like one particular team much more than the others. Your Team™ goes to face another team. If they win, do you feel happy because of it? Why? If they lose, do you feel sad because of it? Why?
The outcome is something completely outside of your control. It doesn’t matter how many shirts of Your Team™ you buy, it doesn’t matter how much you cheered them on during the match.
What you are doing is externalizing your happiness.
By putting your happiness in the hands of outside people that’s a recipe for not having personal accountability.
If you are not feeling well then it’s some else’s fault.
On the contrary, if you are feeling good because of some outside event, like Your Team™ winning, then what does that say to yourself? That you can be happy/feel good/have a sense of accomplishment without having to work for it?
I’m telling you all this but I used to be like this as well.
Then I realized that being upset about some team losing wasn’t doing me any favours and the mental energy that I spent just thinking about the sport, the team, the competitions, also was a huge waste.
It was when I stopped caring about “my team” and that specific sport (football) that I developed interests that were much more beneficial to me,at least in that time, like cycling (actual cycling, not watching cycling) and playing the guitar.
Discussing What’s Best for Your Country™
I think the quote in the beginning of the article really sums it up.
This is what you are really doing when you get emotional discussing, for example, government. corruption scandals related to Your Country™:
“Dam, another corruption scandal of this government! Let me get emotionally affected by this situation and be less happy and productive for the rest of the day/week.
I am deeply concerned about this event even though I can’t do anything about it.
My mental energy will go to watching news and talking to other people about this, instead of going to productive things that actually make me happy.
All of this because I happened to have been born here and since a young age I was culturally conditioned to care about these topics and have a irrational and non beneficial (to me) sense of attachment to this specific country that doesn’t give a shit about me as an individual.”
It doesn’t matter what’s best for Your Country™, or any other type of institution like that.
What matters is what’s best for you and the people close to you. That’s it.
Protesting about problems
Lets say you own a transportation company where a big chunk of the expenses are because of the fuel the trucks use.
With high gas prices you start to lose profits and that’s not good.
What do you do?
1) Do you see if there is some protest happening and join it?
2) Or do you try to find ways for your truck drivers to save fuel by driving in a more efficient way?
Let’s say you go with option 1).
You spend 2h in that protest and spend some money to get there and scream at some politicians. You and 10000 other people do that.
What difference does it make YOU being there? None.
Even if it made a difference, you still had to convince other people (the politicians) to take action, like reduce taxes on fuel. You are dependent on people that you do not control in order to improve your situation.
But option 2) is very different.
Instead you spend 2h researching about ways to reduce fuel consumption. You discovered that a lot of your drivers don’t have the proper angle for the front fairing and that causes more fuel to be wasted. You search for fuel vendors that have lower prices and discounts at certain times so the fuel you do use, is a bit less expensive.
The end result is less fuel is used and the fuel price is lower.
More profits.
In option 1) nothing depends on you, you have no control over the outcome.
In option 2) everything depends on you, you have control over the outcome.
Conclusion
Stop focusing your attention/mental energy/time on external things.
Focus instead on what you can control.
And a philosophy that talks about that is Stoicism.
Stoicism talks about turning your attention inward, knowing that external circumstances are beyond your control, but your response to them you do control.
If you adopt a Stoic mindset and embrace the power of internal focus, you gain the ability to see what is truly important and focus your energy on the things you can control— thoughts, emotions, and actions.