The political climate is sucking the life energy out of us.
There is too much to fight to be able to do it all.
There is too much going on even to stay on top of it all.
There are too many giant steps backwards, undoing decades of work.
There are too many people whose humanity we’ve forgotten or have further degraded.
But on a personal level, as a person who is not immediately impacted by any of it (see: privilege), it’s impacting: people are tired.
Not tired from being too busy—that’s always been a variable.
Tired from all the stuff.
Tired in that “I need an evening to myself” kind of way, but it’s now a relentless fatigue, even with quiet time or fun time or whatever time built in.
People are in touch less. Harder to talk with, even just about day-to-day stuff. Harder to get together with.
I don’t have an actionable solution.
I don’t know how to shift energy expenditure.
I don’t know how to spend the day at work and have energy when I get home, how to give to work what I end up giving to family.
(I’m saying “I” but it’s not just me—I’ve had this conversation with at least half a dozen people—initiated by them—in the last two months.)
I don’t know how to be aware of what’s going on in my country, my state, my town, my school district, my and my son’s schools without it draining energy at every level.
I want to talk to people about health, about diet and exercise and nasty chemicals in common household items, about raising kids to be mentally healthy (to the extent that we guide that), about cooking and playing and painting and writing and on and on and on…
…but who has energy left to examine their habits, much less change them, when it takes all the energy just to make it through the day?
How do we fix this, friends? How do we reclaim our energy and connect with the people around us?