Why are you taking this out on me?

“Why are you taking this out on me?”

My wife, Jennifer, was standing at our kitchen island, cooking dinner for our weekly movie night, giving me an irritated look.

I'd been in a bad mood all day over some political story that had nothing to do with either of us, and she was getting the brunt of it. I couldn’t tell you now what the story even was. And sadly, I’d reached a point where that was happening a lot. Jennifer had finally had enough.

Every news story ate at me back then. It wasn't just one thing or a couple of causes I cared about. The whole miserable newsfeed was bringing me down. I'd start the day pissed off about something that didn't actually touch my life, and I'd let it hang around in my head all day long.

Then, a couple of weeks after Jennifer called me out on my perpetual bad mood, I met up with a former colleague (one of the few people I know who isn’t on social media at all). We had tons to catch up on, and somewhere in the conversation he told me that it wasn’t just social media he skipped. He didn’t follow the news much either. It was all too distracting and negative, so he just…opted out.

I thought that was crazy when he said it. Monitoring breaking news had practically become a sport for me. But he clearly wasn’t suffering from a lack of news. It actually looked like a positive in his life. And as I thought more about that, I realized the news was putting me in a dark place. Pressing the stop button had just never occurred to me.

Heading home, I was inspired to take a break myself. So I installed an extension that blocked the news from my browser and took social media apps off my phone completely.

And you know what happened?

I started to pick my head up and notice people all around me who were kind and helpful and mostly being decent to each other. My real world wasn’t the misery you’d expect based on the newsfeed. The energy in our house changed, and movie nights were fun again.

That was many years ago, and my relationship with news and social media has evolved since then. These days, I’m not a strict no-news person. I pay attention to current events and breaking news, and some social apps have made their way back to my phone. But I’m cautious about my consumption, and I pay attention to how it makes me feel.

I was reminded of my darker days when I met an old friend for drinks recently in NYC. Thirty minutes in, Malerie had covered three countries, two politicians, two influencers, and a podcast host I'd never heard of. She was outraged about one thing after another, and I was on the first sips of my cocktail. My head was spinning, and not in the way I'd hoped.

She finally wound it down.

“Well, that's MY life. How’re things with you?”

She’d been pretty worked up since we sat down. So instead of going into my stuff, I challenged Malerie with some questions.

“None of that is actually your life, though, right? None of those things impact what you do every day. So why are you so wrapped up in all of it?”

She looked like I'd let her down.

“If I don't do something about it, who's going to?”

“But what have you actually done about any of these things?”

She didn’t appreciate my prodding. And I knew the answer to that question already.

What Malerie does is post on social media about her grievances. Constantly. All day. Every new cause gets the full treatment across Instagram, X, and TikTok. Sometimes all three, and multiple times, before lunch. Nobody’s an expert on fifty different issues. But social posting feels like taking action, I suppose.

This is a cycle I’ve seen Malerie play out for years. A new cause arrives, and she globs on and runs with it. The specifics might change, but the pattern stays the same. She consumes, gets angry, posts, reposts, argues with everyone, and then waits for the next outrage to arrive. And the news is always happy to deliver.

Malerie doesn't have a cause. She has every cause. And there's always a new one coming down the pipe. She directs an enormous amount of energy toward things she can’t control and has no practical way to change.

Meanwhile, all that outrage follows her into the parts of life she can actually do something about.

I can empathize because I’ve been there.

I’d let the news dominate my mood and carried that mood into my own home. I was so upset by events happening somewhere else that I treated my favorite person poorly. And being angry had done nothing to change the world. It had only made my little corner of it worse.

To be clear, caring and being passionate are both important. I care about plenty of causes, and yes, I still get fired up here and there. The problem isn’t caring. The problem is spending all of your time consuming, posting, and reposting about things that upset you while doing nothing to change the situation you’re yelling about.

Because when you let anything and everything take up space in your head, and you give your identity to the daily outrage, your real life suffers.

Your marriage, your health, your work, and your friendships all deserve your attention. They all get better or worse based on how much time and energy you invest in them. And they can’t flourish when some news story is taking up all that space.

So my policy is to secure my own oxygen mask first, just like they tell you on a plane in case of an emergency. Maybe that sounds selfish. But they say that because you can’t possibly help anyone else if you’re not okay yourself.

Getting your own house in order has to come first. Because the world is going to keep moving along, in all its lunacy, whether you like it or not.

And it will be fine without your constant attention.

The question is, will your life be?

That's all for this week.

See you next Saturday.