Don't consume your day with current events
Let's take an event: "THE LATEST CRISIS." You read, watch, or listen to the take, the counter-take, the social media take, the influencer take, the Reddit community take, your friends' take, and your parents' take. Before you know it, without your knowledge, recognition, or considered consent, you have decided to spend time on THE LATEST CRISIS. With that decision, you have actually embarked on a journey of up to five independent assumptions: 1. THE LATEST CRISIS is important because it will affect my life in a BIG way
-
If indeed THE LATEST CRISIS does affect my life, I have control over the outcome via some array of actions
-
I can figure out what the optimal action, "PERFECT SHOT," is
-
I can successfully execute action PERFECT SHOT
-
PERFECT SHOT actually has the intended effect on my life against THE LATEST CRISIS without any major negative effect [This is subtle but important because the world has feedback loops. Actions have consequences that we cannot predict.]
The news + social media machinery does a fantastic job of convincing you that THE LATEST CRISIS automatically passes the bar on assumptions (1) and (2). After all, why else would everyone report on it? That should be the first thing that causes you to be on guard. 99% of events should not make the cut. We somewhat filter these "crisis" events, but the bar—mine, at least—is set at maybe 30–50%. How do I know it should be 99%? Easy: look back at the past 12 months of news + social media events and see how many made the cut for (1) AND (2).
Then, for those THE LATEST CRISES that make the cut—and remember, most should not—see where assumptions (3–5) were actually true. I wager that this will be another 90–99% drop-off.
So why do we do it? The answer is in assumption 2—human hubris and our craving for a sense of control. Each human believes that they are a god of their world, that they are a critical part of the shared world they live in and are therefore seriously affected by it, and that they therefore must influence the outcome to their selfish liking. Not true.