Everyone's Trying To Rage Bait Me And I'm Done With It

I see it on my phone, I see it on the screens. I see it in the feed; why are they all so mean?

I feel it in my stomach, I feel it in my chest, the anger starts to bubble, I think I need a rest.

The shouting seems so pointless, the shouting seems so lame. The voices go in circles, it starts to hurt my brain.

I can’t find any balance, and I can’t find any calm. They want to pull me in with lies and lead me by the arm.

I’m done with rage, I’m done with clicks, I think I’ll go outside. My mind was never built for this; just let me be alive.

This post was inspired by the work of Karl Dunn author of UNDIVIDING. Please check out his publication and his admirable mission of reconnecting us.

Dear friend,

Why does everyone want me to feel angry all the time? Why does everyone want me to “pick a side?”

I mean, it kind of feels intentional, doesn’t it?

And to be brutally honest with you, I’m not interested in it anymore. It’s exhausting. It feels so pointless.

I feel like I want to go and live on an island by myself for 6 months and build a cabin, go fishing and lie in the sun drinking coconut water.

• I turn on the TV, and people on panel shows are shouting about things that are serious issues, yet they can’t do anything but argue about them instead of constructively trying to find solutions.

• There are clips online about celebrities who skip lines because they’re famous.

• Meat eaters are yelling at plant eaters and vice versa.

• If you don’t support the same sports team as the other person, you’re a clown.

• People who support one political party call the other side losers.

• People who don’t put pineapple on their pizza call the ones that do “crazy people.”

Okay, that last one isn’t as bad, but you get my point…

The voices are all so angry and want you to join in this fight, that fight…yawn.

I’m becoming more mindful of what is trying to pull my attention these days. Because here’s the thing - you only have so much time in the day. You only have so much you can truly care about in 24 hours. Why spend it focusing on the rage? Most of it is manufactured anyway.

But you can choose to ignore it to protect your calm. And that’s exactly what I’ve done because I believe most people are pretty reasonable.

I go outside in the real world, and people are reasonable. 99% of people just want to be left alone to live their lives.

When I realised most of the rage is just baiting for clicks, I had one of those “oh, I get it now!” moments. And it’s dramatically improved my ability to protect my calm.

I click the big X at the top right of the screen, or I ignore it completely, putting it in the ‘not important’ box. It has become very black and white, and it’s unbelievably freeing.

Share

I don’t know if you have felt this too, but there’s something I’ve become mindful of in the past few months, something I’m calling “the pixel perception”. It’s the way things feel different behind a screen compared to if you experienced them in real life.

For example, have you ever received a text message, maybe from a parent or an elderly relative, who simply replies with something like:

“Yes.”

To a lot of us, this might seem a bit cold. We might wonder if they’re annoyed with us about something. But that’s just how they talk. They don’t use long messages or emojis to express their emotions. They’re to the point.

And this is the same for the content we view behind a screen. Things seem to feel way worse behind a screen than they actually are. We have a hard time truly feeling what the real situation is.

We’re left to guess, and our imaginations start to take over. And you might even be digesting this very post differently from how you would if I were sitting next to you, talking about this subject.

I’m protecting my peace by ignoring the bait, and instead, trying to improve my real-world connections because every time I do that, I realise that we’re more similar than we are different.

When I do read or watch some kind of content, I practise what I tell my son about the online world:

Take everything with a pinch of salt. Most of what you read and watch isn’t real, it’s there to get some kind of reaction from you. But you’re smarter than that. Think about why they might be saying those things. What do they want from you? Ask yourself if you really need to react. Will it make you feel better or not?

Because at the end of the day, we all just want the same things, don’t we? Does it not make more sense to help each other? How else do we expect to transcend our current way of being into something better, healthier and progressive as a species?

My friend, I’m done with the rage and division. I’m choosing to focus on the good, the stuff that connects us, because there is no alternative if you wish to live an energised life.

Download your own mindful flashcards for less than the price of a coffee here. Thank you for your support!