There’s so much doom on social media right now. The environment is collapsing. The economy will crash. Civil rights are ending. Democracy is dead.

What keeps you going? Why do you still get up and go do what needs to be done when the world seems to be ending around us?

  • TwoBeeSan@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    11
    ·
    1 year ago

    Find a small corner of the world you can improve and focus on that. Can only effect what you can. Not worth worrying about the other stuff.

    As hokey as it sounds 🤷‍♂️

  • Carrolade@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    10
    ·
    1 year ago

    Study of history.

    People have been prophesying the end times for millennia now, for this reason or that reason. I think that ultimately they just don’t like the basic fact that change of some sort or another is inevitable in the world, it will not remain static and no system or institution will last forever. This does not result in any concrete end, however.

    To quote Morpheus, “I remember that I am here not because of the path that lies before me, but because of the path that lies behind me.”

    There’s also a fair bit of profit-driven exaggeration in just how bad things really are in certain arenas. Bad news makes good clickbait, good/neutral news less so. So the ratio of bad to good news we receive is not actually representative of the full picture of what is happening in the world.

  • ch00f@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    10
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    Over the past few weeks, I realized that I wasn’t reading the news to “stay informed,” I was reading it because I was bored. As a form of entertainment, it’s pretty awful. 99% of what I read will have no direct impact on me or my family, and just sitting there and worrying about it without doing anything to fix it serves nobody.

    Also, I’ve learned to be skeptical of basically every headline good or bad. I saw a headline this week about how upset Trump supporters were with his cabinet picks. Comments in the thread were talking about leopards eating faces. The article was a collection of 8 tweets from supporters showing disapproval.

    This news site was just preying on people’s hopes and making a story out of absolutely nothing.

    So I started focusing on some personal hobbies and have tried to re-teach myself how to focus by reading some long form fiction.

  • berryjam@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    6
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    What else are we supposed to do?

    Edit: that’s a rhetorical question, don’t come at me enumerating the alternatives

  • GHiLA@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    6
    ·
    1 year ago

    I don’t have any. I’m just taking care of my family until I run out of living relatives to give a shit about, then I’m out. Peace.

  • MR_NEGATIVE @lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    4
    ·
    1 year ago

    What keeps you going? Why do you still get up and go do what needs to be done when the world seems to be ending around us? For me it’s my family , my own goal like playing gta 6 (even I don’t think I will play) but for me big reason I have friends I like to talk with them and enjoy with them. Because nobody like loneliness even iam introvert guy I still like to share my thoughts with others and knowing thier thoughts.i think it’s enough for me keep going .I wanna suggest you to search about absurdism or watch the movie everything everywhere all at once .

  • katkit@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    4
    ·
    1 year ago

    Personally, I turn to activism. I realized that regardless of how horrible the future will be, there’s good to do in this world.

    The world is full of people who are as scared as you and I are. I can make their lives a tad more positive.

    The environment is collapsing? Educate and organise, think about how to build mutual aid systems and how to sustain yourself small scale.

    The economy will crash? Help others, people who got thrown to the curb by the social system, homeless people, orphans,…

    Civil rights are ending? I’m trans and scared. And there’s so many other trans children that are counting on me to be the representation that I wish would have had when I was their age. I’m not going down without a fight.

    Democracy is ending? Let’s focus on preserving what we can and try to rebuild. It won’t be over forever.

    People being nice to and helping me often makes my day in an otherwise miserable time.I want to be that person for others.

  • BlueMagma@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    Curiosity, so I observe. I believe we have control over nothing and that free will is an illusion. Consciousness is a mystery, as much my own as the one I suppose others have. In the middle of the chaos, I sometimes see glimpses of beauty, in many forms: music, images, people’s behaviour, fiction, maths, nature… So I observe , I try to find patterns, to understand how things work, why others do what they do. I have found beauty in the very little things, what used to be chores I now enjoy, they were chores because “I thought I had better more important things to do”, I wanted to be “later” but now I know what matters is to live in the moment, and I’ll be living the next moment later.

    Social media, the news, they are trying to grab your attention and project you to the future, what is the next threat, when are you likely to die or suffer. The truth is: we are all going to be dead eventually, it can be for many reasons, it can be in the next hour, or in thousands of years, we cannot know when, but we all know it will happen, doesn’t really help to worry too much about it.

    Don’t waste your life trying to prevent your inevitable death. Enjoy it while you can. The rest is mostly out of your control anyway.

  • lordnikon@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    1 year ago

    Basically it’s self fulfilling if say that. You can believe all that i do too but I don’t say it becomes a forgone conclusion as that will make it happen for sure. My thoughts on it are. if it’s going to happen im gone to make it as hard as I can for the people that are making it happen and the closer we get to it happening the more radical my actions will become. I will help my community where I can and do my best to make the people responsible pay for their actions. I would read about community network building.

    Also there is a YouTube channel Beau of the fifth column that has a lot of great advice. I know the name makes it sound like a crazy person but it’s not. They put the news into perspective and talk about ways to help your community. When the government and other social structures are gone.

    Also if you want to talk I would be happy to be your penpal.

  • southsamurai@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    1 year ago

    That at any time I want, I can opt out.

    I don’t have to stay here and put up with the bullshit if I don’t want to.

    That’s also a possibility where I could do something useful by taking someone else out with me, if I can manage to get it done.

    You have no idea how freeing it is to be okay with death. When you cease fearing it and look at it as a welcome friend, everything changes.

    Now it is important to realize that this is not a desire to die. It’s simply accepting that death is inevitable, and that it is possible to choose when and how I die, if that’s something that seems useful. Life isn’t inherently sacred, there’s no special glory in not dying, there’s no particular benefit to sticking around other than more of the same that’s already happened.

    This means that every day is a choice. It’s something I own. I have alternatives. We all do, but I’m aware of that fact in a way that makes even the truly horrible much less impressive.

    Again, this is entirely different from wanting to off myself, it isn’t depression. It’s just the way I see things.

  • rowinxavier@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    1 year ago

    I work in disability support. Some of the kids I am working with have gone over the last year from non speaking to using sign and are making real meaningful progress in their self care skills. They can keep going in the face of difficult times, so my problems don’t seem so hard.

    Also, in Australia we have the NDIS, a system for funding disability supports in a socialised manner without restricting what options someone uses too much. While all governmental systems (or any systems with money) are susceptible to grift progress is being made on catching fraudsters and prosecuting them while also closing the loopholes they exploit. The NDIS will be around for a long time to come and will help Australians with disabilities determine their own futures and make them a reality. There are problems with it but honestly it has been a game changer and I think it is a model for the rest of the world to aspire to.