Quick favor: hit the restack button so other people can have the same experience. I don’t control the algorithm. I just bribe it with your clicks.
Powerlessness is one of the most disconcerting feelings there is. It exposes something most of us have been avoiding: the fact that control was always more limited than we really wanted to believe.
Most of us have been managing around this feeling for a long time. The managing looks like staying busy, or planning more carefully, or going over what happened one more time to find the part that was actually controllable.
Your brain isn't doing this to torture you. It genuinely believes that if it finds the right angle, the right thing you could have done differently, it can hand you back some safety.
That's your nervous system doing exactly what it was built to do. And it’s overwhelming AF. The kind of overwhelm makes your brain work harder than it has to.
Because part of you already knows that the thing you're fixated on isn't actually yours to fix, or wasn't preventable, or is genuinely out of your hands. But knowing that doesn't make the feeling leave.
It just adds a layer of frustration on top of it where you're annoyed at yourself for still being stuck, which makes the stuck-ness feel much worse.
So, before I say anything else, just know that the feeling makes sense. You don't need to justify it or rush past it.
When you're ready — and that might not be right now, and that's fine — it can help to get a little more specific about what you think you're actually powerless over. Because inside that feeling, there are usually two different things mixed together: 1) the things that genuinely aren't yours to control, and 2) the things that are yours but feel too heavy or confusing to deal with right now.
Overwhelm has a way of making even the reachable things feel like they're behind glass.
The question isn't how do I fix this?
It’s actually smaller than that.
The only real thing that needs attention is what’s actually mine to fix.
Powerless isn’t the same as helpless. The distinction matters more than it sounds.
— Someone who knows what it’s like to reach for control that isn’t there
You know exactly who popped into your head while you were reading this. Send it to them. Don’t overthink it. Just hit share and let me do the talking for you.
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