There seems to be no shortage of bad news lately, and thanks to the advent of the internet it seems to be coming at us faster than ever before.
I saw a social media meme recently that said "My desire to be well-informed is currently at odds with my desire to remain sane" and well, I think it sums up our current world situation in a nutshell.
Every day that goes by, there is a new controversy coming out of the American White House, the latest of which is Mr. Trump's plan to essentially commit genocide by removing the Palestinians from Gaza, and through his near initiation of a trade war with Canada and Mexico have caused more than a little bit of stress.
In Canada, Pierre Polliviere is already in full campaign mode as the federal Liberals try and get themselves a new leader. And in Alberta, our premier seems to be marching out of step with the rest of the country, and the opposition NDP is currently calling for an RCMP probe into the firing of the Alberta Health Services chief executive and board of procurement issues.
These close-to-home issues are on top of the ongoing war in Ukraine and other conflicts.
In summary, there is no shortage of bad news going around. It will be way too easy to get bogged down by the bad news if you let it.
Five years ago, I would have been a lot more stressed by all of these events than I am now. Today, I rely on a concept borrowed from the world of climbing to help me keep from getting overwhelmed when the world feels as if it's falling apart.
During an episode of SEAL Team, I was introduced to the concept of a "three-foot world." I have to admit, the concept intrigued me, so I did some reading on it.
In short, when a climber is on a rock face, their world is made up of the three feet immediately around them as it is the area where they can directly influence. Anything beyond that three feet is out of reach and, therefore, not worth focusing on.
That's not to say, they don't look at the area outside of the three feet; they have to in order to plan their route up the face, but there is a difference between having an overview knowledge of what's going on and the macro, closeup view in the world around them.
The fact of the matter is, it's in the macro area where life is lived. While we need to be aware what is happening in the various levels of government as the decisions those individuals make will ultimately have an effect on us, we can't let ourselves get bogged down in the minutiae of what's happening as there really is nothing that we can do to change it outside of vote when given the opportunity.
Instead, we need to focus on the three-feet view of our lives; our family, our friends, our jobs, our pets, the things that we can directly affect on a day-to-day basis.
Learning this concept and actually putting it into practice was a challenge, but it has been an absolute game-changer for me on my journey towards mental health recovery.
There's no shortage of bad news in the world today, but we don't have to let it get us down.
Let's focus on our three-foot worlds.
