[Rod_Cloutier]

I think one of the reasons that I visit this board so often is that I am really, really worried about things. As a personal control freak, I feel if I can control a situation, then I am at less risk of being a victim of it. So I worry about what will happen, how it will happen, what I can do to mitigate the problems when they happen, what is my exit strategy when the issues do not go as planned and so forth.

This strategy really is not working for me. Or I think, for anyone else on this board, we are all worried about things, such as:

Peak oil
Catastrophic climate change
The economy
Nature
Pollution
Unsustainablilty
Politics
War
Energy
Terrorism
Weather
Sea level rise
Agriculture
Droughts
Floods

And the list goes on and on...

Where are we for all of this worry. Better educated yes, but are we better off. John Michael Greer postulated that Problems have solutions, but predicaments have outcomes. All the worry in the world will not solve predicaments.

I am trying to deal with worry, but no luck so far. This is the famous book by Dale Carnegie, how to stop worrying and start living:

https://youtu.be/lAH-vIOEzgw?t=2s

It lost me about 1 hour into the audiobook when it suggested that I should visualize, What is the worst thing that can happen

There is this new age video by Teal Swan about worry:

https://youtu.be/avhLg3gUFlw?t=5s

But it lost me, when she started talking about the Law of Attraction, if I actually believed that their is a physical law of nature, this would be easier to believe.

Anyone else having an issue with this...

[Tanada]

In mathematics there is a very real law of attractors, functions follow a multi dimensional form when plotted out through many repetitions.

Spend about 20 minutes watching these two videos to see what I am trying to say made more clear by experts.

https://youtu.be/Rz2yEMeKZuE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21prI1I4p8M

[SeaGypsy]

Console yourself with the timelessness of doom, considering each age has it's own. It wasn't long ago 50 was old & 4/5 surviving childhood was good odds, chances of dying in agony about 9/10. As Gautama said: "life is suffering", we only worsen it by expecting different.

[Shaved Monkey]

I try not to waste too much energy worrying about what I cant change.
I try not to suffer in whatever I do, everything is just an adventure ,enjoy what you have and what you are doing.
I like gardening,tinkering, fishing, cooking, eating and talking they are all freeish to do.
Planning for retirement is the key,a simple, happy, sustainable life,Ive been planning since my late teens.

Im in a 3rd world country right now everyone has not much but seem very happy with what they have.
If we collapse to the 3rd world level and are as happy as them it should be fine.

[GoghGoner]

Probably not going to help you at all but I personally don't worry much about anything. My lack of worry may be unhealthy even. There is always a balance in life and worrying is only natural. Folks won't to avoid all discomforting feelings but they are necessary to stress you out so you actually get off the couch and do something.

I stopped worrying because nothing ever happened like I thought it would short-term. Everything seems to be fine which is life's little mystery.

[Pops]

As a personal control freak, I feel if I can control a situation, then I am at less risk of being a victim of it. So I worry about what will happen, how it will happen, what I can do to mitigate the problems when they happen, what is my exit strategy when the issues do not go as planned and so forth.

Hi, Rod. I can relate totally.

If you worry so much it affects your day to day maybe you should see someone? Not being a smartass, anxiety is a pretty common thing in the modern world. I qualify on about half of these...

My best therapy is doing something. I've always been preppish. Not the camo, ar15, paracord and Bowie knife kind, just the tomato vine, canning jar, big pantry sort. Long ago I suggested to plan for as many possibilities as possible, including the possibility of nothing-much.

Second best thing is turning this place off (tho I always seem to wind up back here myself lol)
.

[mmasters]

Doom isn't healthy. Use common sense. Only worry about what you can control. Despite all the prophets the world is too complex for any human to figure out how it will play out.

[Ibon]

As a personal control freak, I feel if I can control a situation, then I am at less risk of being a victim of it. So I worry about what will happen, how it will happen, what I can do to mitigate the problems when they happen, what is my exit strategy when the issues do not go as planned and so forth.

Hi, Rod. I can relate totally.

If you worry so much it affects your day to day maybe you should see someone? Not being a smartass, anxiety is a pretty common thing in the modern world. I qualify on about half of these...

My best therapy is doing something. I've always been preppish. Not the camo, ar15, paracord and Bowie knife kind, just the tomato vine, canning jar, big pantry sort. Long ago I suggested to plan for as many possibilities as possible, including the possibility of nothing-much.

Second best thing is turning this place off (tho I always seem to wind up back here myself lol)
.

Great advice Pops. The only thing I would add is to look at potential choas in the same way you recognize your own and mortality and death one day. There is only so much you can do about that lol. If you can internalize this you can come to a place where this throws you in the moment and you abandon the whole mind set of "needing" to prep. Then the prepping you actually do is done not in panic but for the sure joy of tinkering and preparing. This all allows you to get your head out of future catastrophes and focus more on day to day being.

That wise saying about knowing the difference between what you can change and accepting what you cant comes to mind as well. Surrendering to the chaos parallel with some basic prepping seems for some any way to be the best position for ones well being. Others might disagree and find intense prepping the only way they can have peace of mind. So this also an individual choice, there is no one size fits all.

[Newfie]

I second Pops and Ibon. Idle hands do the Devils work.

I try to follow this rule in big and small things, not always successfully.

When engaged in a project (and life is a project) most things are pretty simple, some hard, some seem impossible. Work at getting the easy stuff done. You build skills and have time to think about the hard stuff. You can prep to make the hard stuff easier, and things are getting done. The impossible stuff? Often it goes away, or you see it differently and its not so impossible, or you find someone else to help.

But in the meantime yo are making progress and at the end of the day you are satisfied and too tired to worry.

This works for me a lot, but obviously is not a cure all. Worry is still there but manageable.

[Cog]

Turn off the doom and go do something useful.

[Ibon]

Stop reading the news - it's bad for you !!

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/ ... lf-dobelli

News is bad for your health. It leads to fear and aggression, and hinders your creativity and ability to think deeply. The solution? Stop consuming it altogether

Gas

News is bad for your health especially when you live in the suburbs and socially isolated places in America, you dont know your neighbors, and what comes through the media is what primarily defines your culture. This is why so many Americans are idiots and so easily duped.

[Cog]

Thanks for insulting most of the board. I guess we are just deplorable.

[Ibon]

Thanks for insulting most of the board. I guess we are just deplorable.

Don't you know Cog, I have been absorbing Trumps style for the past 12 months and he is becomng a mentor!

[Cog]

Sadly I see that you have learned nothing about America or what motivates us. Best you stay down in the jungle. Maybe the Indians will be impressed with your intellect given their lower standards.

[ralfy]

Unfortunately, the argument of complexity works both ways.

[Ibon]

Sadly I see that you have learned nothing about America or what motivates us. Best you stay down in the jungle. Maybe the Indians will be impressed with your intellect given their lower standards.

I am hanging with the Panamanian rapists

[Newfie]

Stop reading the news - it's bad for you !!

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/ ... lf-dobelli

News is bad for your health. It leads to fear and aggression, and hinders your creativity and ability to think deeply. The solution? Stop consuming it altogether

Gas

News is bad for your health especially when you live in the suburbs and socially isolated places in America, you dont know your neighbors, and what comes through the media is what primarily defines your culture. This is why so many Americans are idiots and so easily duped.

bias
While I agree news isn't healthy (I had posted the same link elsewhere) I do disagree that isolation is a suburban phenonome. I lived in a large city center and never knew my neighbors. I belonged to a very liberal religious organization where I was very active. To use Pops phrase, it was an echo chamber of the worst kind. I tried hard to introduce some broader concepts and had almost no success.

We now live on the boat, wherever we go we meet other cruisers and a wide range of folks in small towns. We actually socialize more.

Our news sources are limited by the Internet, by the MSM bias. But that's pretty universial of location.

[Pops]

I think sensationalist headline news is bad in the same way being at the low end of the pecking order is bad, it stirs up the fight/flight hormones but there is really no outlet, you just sit and take it and feel helpless and build up resentment.

I really like both Chris Hayes and Rachel Maddow, I think they are really smart, but I don't watch them regularly for the same reason I don't read Huffpost or Salon or whatever other leftwing news. They don't pretend to be "fair and balanced" and don't necessarily lie, but they appeal to the outrage reflex simply by their choice of story and framing.

My big problem is working at a computer all day, google news is just a click away...


*(Hayes' "Twilight of the Elites" nailed the problem with meritocracy as a replacement to the previous incarnation of oligarchy and fairly well predicted a trump a dozen years ago)

[Ibon]

The social fabric in America has gone through a radical change in the past century. Civil society used to be far richer, small towns had centers and main streets, folks worked at the same place their whole lives. Today the small towns are gone, big box stores, civil society has disappeared in many places, churches are still strong though. Huge migration from the rust belt to the south and southwest. All of these factors have frayed the social fabric of America where folks really often don't know their neighbors. This creates a cultural deprivation where media and TV end up having a far greater impact on ones cultural identity than you would see in a smaller country where folks are culturally integrated in their communities and media and TV is present but its ability to affect culture is more limited because folks are buffered by a stronger regional culture. This is what is missing in America today and this is why the media has become a major conduit for cultural identity. This is increasingly what is forming cultural identity in America and you only have to look at the content of media to understand the idiocracy and mediocrity that formed most Americans discourse on social issues and politics. that is why I mentioned that many Americans not exposed to the diversity of urban areas have become idiots. Let's not mince words or try to be political correct about Americans here. In education they are falling behind many industrialized countries. In aggregate Americans are becoming stupider and they are more vulnerable to media and political manipulations on both sides of the political spectrum. Trump out performed Clinton in baiting the idiots and he won.

Americans are not getting any smarter. Political strategists will take lessons from Trump. We will see the dumbing down continue in politics appealing to a smaller collective IQ as we move forward.