Unplug

I am one of those people that unplugs items around the house when I go on a trip. I do it because I want to protect and keep the things I find valuable, from anything happening to them, in the even of a power surge or some other king of natural event that would cause a power outage, or surge. My computer is number one on my list. I use it for my writing and I can’t afford to lose my work. Preservation of high value items is wise, I believe. I’m probable not the only one who does this. So if we protect our “things” like this, why aren’t we protecting our most valuable thing in life, our mental health?

We come and go all day long. Work, family, home, and friends, among a myriad of other responsibilities, already stress our minds and bodies, daily. There is no stopping life, for a break from it. But why do we always insist on piling on more weight onto our chests? Why do we perpetually weary our souls, with things that we have no control over, in a real sense.

I’m taking about the constant droning of the bad news media. It’s never good news, so it should be called bad news channel, bad news media or bad news podcast.

This is where the internet and 24 hour news channels fail us. They perpetuate our misery. It seems there is a lot of money in keeping people down, miserable and disgruntled. It’s unfortunate that we tend to keep going after it. Then we wonder why our day is a dumpster fire, or why we have anxiety, depressive

or anger issues.

Let me share with you a little but about me. About twenty years ago, I realized I was living each day in a constant panic. I was afraid of what was happening, of what might happen or what might not happen in the world.

I watched the news endlessly, I watched doomsday sayers, like Glen Beck, MSNBC, CNN, Fox News, at every turn. It was like an addiction to see what everyone on the planet was up to, and how we were imploding that day. The news cycle, facebook, and all social media was a cesspool of despair.

People like Beck had me on edge, that the world was coming to an end, and I needed to be prepared. I became a pepper of sorts. I planted a huge vegetable garden about 125’x50’, and grew all my own vegetables, thinking the end was coming. Let’s face it, the way things are going, they sure didn’t look promising, not that they do now, either. So I decided to be proactive and make sure I had supplies, where I knew the source from start to finish. I literally spent an entire month, daily, canning just tomatoes, filling my pantry for several years.

I canned everything I grew, not just tomatoes. I hade beans and green beans, okra (because I love it and cajun), peppers of all kinds, heat intensely and colors, peas, carrots, beets and a whole slew of root vegetables. I also had zucchini, squash, melons, fruits of all kinds, pumpkins and so on. I think I didn’t have to buy pumpkin for pies for over four years.

Now don’t get me wrong, vegetable and fruit gardening is truly magical. Well, for me it was. I absolutely love having my hands in the dirt. I wait all year for spring and the initiation of the first planting cycle. I also loved canning my own foods. It is very rewarding and gives you a serious sense of accomplishment. I can understand why farmers do it as a career. It is a great hobby, too, and if you don’t have one, maybe you should try it. It is very therapeutic, but I’ll get to that. But, going overboard because of fear was not a good reason, and it actually caused me more stress.

I was constantly checking the crops and in the kitchen from morning to night canning. It’s also not cheap and way more expensive than going to Kroger for a can of sauce. I would go out several times a day to check things that were ripe and ready to be picked. Why several times a day? Well, if you have ever grown things like zucchini or summer squash, let alone okra and even cucumbers, you know that you can almost watch them grow and ripen before your eyes. It’s astounding.

I would check those plants before bed and see nothing quite ready, to waking up in the morning to okra that was too large to eat (they get woody), to zucchini and summer squash as big as my forearm. The night before they were smaller than a gherkin.

Fortunately, zucchini and squash are fine that big, but okra and cucumber become inedible. Okra turns into a fibrous mess that you can’t eat, and cucumbers turn yellow and bitter. Bleh!

So I went on and on for quite some time doing this. I was almost at the point of buying those emergency prepping kits, when I slammed on the brakes.

I was making myself crazy. My husband was worried I was getting a bit radical with the end of life and society nonsense. And yes it is nonsense, but I was making my own mind and body a temple of doom.

So, I made a decision. I turned off the Beck’s of the world, stopped watching the cable news networks, and only watch the local new channels. Old school.

I told my dear husband that I needed to do this, and he laughed and told me he was beginning to wonder if I needed a doomsday intervention. Mind you, he watched the same things I was watching, but men handle and process differently than women. They can put it in a box, that doesn’t touch anything else and keep it there, where women, grab hold, yuck it into our chests and we think about it all say long, how to protect our families and loved ones from disaster and so on. We are emotional creatures and there is nothing wrong with that because it gives the analytical, balance. Life always has balance.

So I started with Beck, then the new networks. I think you all can see where I am going with this. I began to come down off the terror and fear, pedestal. Within a week, I was feeling more relaxed. I was not so fearful, anymore, and I was actually happy. Not happy with the conditions of the world, per se, but happy with my life. It was after a few weeks of ignoring these fear mongers, that I came to a cathartic moment.

I realized that nothing I was watching or hearing in those tormenting news and commentary programming, was effecting my dad to day life. It did not matter what the president said or did, it didn’t matter what laws were made or unmade, nor what some hater in another country was spewing.

For the most part, there is not much that changes in daily life. Governments runs slowly. Changes in law take a very long time. I can’t change what some idiot is going to do halfway across the world. So while I am so bogged down with making myself despondent over what everyone else does out in the political world, not one single one of them is concerned about me and my day to day. Not one.

Oh they say they do what they do for the people, for us, but the truth of the matter is not true. They do it for their own interests, the interests of allies, the interests of corporations and lobbyists, and the interests of their wallets. There is not one person out there in the news or government, that does not do this. Don’t believe me? Follow the money.

Take any single discussion, and look at the parties involved. Look at what they are trying to do and who the benefit trickles down to. It is not us. It is them and their cronies.

So as I said, I stopped all of it and I was at peace. I was calmer, I stopped prepping. I stopped living each moment in fear. Basically, I had to ask myself what I trusted and whom. What I trusted in, was far more powerful than any of them or anything they could do. And I was fine with that. When you believe in something, you walk that walk and you live it out. I do. I am not in control and I don’t have to be.

What happens will happen and I will, or we will adjust. It’s was makes us humans. we adapt quickly.

The most significant thing I noticed was my countenance. It drastically improved. I stopped hating every one, stopped picking a side to be on, and learned that doing that divides us. It does not unite anything. It pits person against person, religion against religion, race against race, lifestyle or ideology against ideology. The world has an overabundance of that, and it is not making life any better, is it?

So this is why I ask about the unplugging of the things we value when we leave our homes for a length of time. I ask because, if you are conscientious to protect your television, your computers, or any other thing in your home, you value, why aren’t you unplugging from the fear mongers and hate perpetuators?

Do you feel better after you watch the misery they are selling? Is your countenance improving or worsening? Do you hate people that don’t think like you, believe like you, worship like you, or vote like you?

I am willing to bet that everyone who is reading this has some part or all parts of the examples in this article. I was there too.

But I valued my sanity, my peace, my love for people in general. I don’t want to fight with a friend or relative that does not see it like I do. I don’t want some nitwit on tv telling me we are all destined for catastrophe. There is way too much manipulation going on. One side tried to manipulate their side, the other, the same. One side incites against the other and vice versa. It truly never ends, and it is why we don’t have peace.

It is why we live in constant fear, why so many of us have depression or anxiety. It is why we are all so much lonelier than we were before the 24 hour news cycle began. It is why we refuse to see that that person you are chatting with on Facebook, is just like you, no matter what they believe, who they vote for, and what they do in their lives. We are all the same. We all want to have peaceful and fulfilling lives with joy and even happiness.

Unplug for a couple days and see if it makes a difference. Let go for a few days. Trust me the dumpster fire will not stop because there is one less match.

I did what I am suggesting and it has been 20 years. I have not looked back, longed for the shit show, become embittered towards anyone, any thing, or faction, in all these years. I can honestly say I have joy, peace and happiness.

I’ll tell you another thing. I learned and began to see others more clearly and with a much calmer mindset. I realized non of us is any different from the other. And that is a good thing. I realized that when things become one sided, you no longer have freedom or diversity in life. You have controlled minds. I realized that my mental health and emotional health were far more important than feeding the monster we are nourishing with our lives.

Unplugging to the extent I did may not be exactly how you might choose to give it a go, but try it for a couple days. Stop watching the hate and rhetoric for a week. For that week, don’t engage in anything of the sort on social media either. Don’t even watch the local news. Cut it all off clean for just one week. See what happens. See if you become more at ease.

Trust me, the mess will still be out there when you get back to it. But I promise you, that not one thing will change in your day to day living. You will still wake up, go to work if you work, feed the kids, if have them, come home at the end of the day, have your meals for the day and go to sleep in your usual routine. You might actually enjoy that day to day more. Your anxiety might lessen. You might even be happier than you have been. I don’t regret it. I get what I need from local news once a day, and only when I want.

It’s amusing that in a one week period, the news seems to always be the same, day after day. That tells me all I need to know. It can live without me for some time, and it will still be in its wretchedness when I get back to it.

Prioritization of your mind and peace is smart and needed. We are turning into a world of haters, a depressed society. Mental illness is skyrocketing. The pharmaceutical companies love that. Who wants to live like that?

Give yourselves permission to take a vacation from hell and unplug the demons. Grab a slice of happiness and peace for a change.