If it feels like the world is coming apart at the seams, you’re not alone.
Trump is back in the White House. Crypto is at all-time highs and the stock market is ripe for a correction. The geopolitical landscape is unstable and global power conflict seems imminent. Perhaps most unsettling, AI is reshaping our lives faster than we can keep up.
It is impossible to know how any of this will turn out. While I remain optimistic about the future, I’m also realistic. If the recent pandemic is any indication, there’s no reason to expect us to navigate these challenges cleanly. The more likely outcome is a further descent into tribalism, hysteria, and selfishness.
We’re in for challenging years ahead.
In anticipation of this uncertain future, I’ve been thinking about the survival methods that helped some people navigate the pandemic better than others. We all know people who adapted to their circumstances with new routines and a positive mindset, and others who got caught in the doom-loop. If 2020 was a preview of our new normal – defined by radical change, high stakes and bad leadership – then those who weathered it best have something to teach us.
In my mind, these “survivors” stood out in two ways:
First, they focused on what they could control, and ignored what they could not.
They saw the endless negative headlines and social media fights for what they were – distractions from the areas of life where they had real agency. As Joan Baez put it, “action is the antidote to despair.”
Second, they invested in what truly matters.
They recognized that relationships, community and purpose are what give meaning to life – not ideological purity or material success. They were unwilling to sacrifice the former for the latter.
I am no expert, but here is how I am thinking about applying these survivor behaviors in my own life:
Tune Out the Noise
My instinct in an uncertain environment is to confuse information for control. But anyone who tried this in 2020 knows that no amount of information is ever enough – instead, the more “informed” I am about the state of the world, the more helpless I feel about it.
Going forward, my filter for consuming information will be limited to what I enjoy learning about and what will influence action on my part. No more Senate confirmation hearings. No more Elon tweets. No more videos of gotcha! moments on cable news. While that can feel selfish, the truth is that information for information’s sake does no one any good. As Ryan Holiday says, “let’s stop pretending that the ceaseless news feed is anything other than what it is: addiction and manipulation masquerading as a social good.”
And if and when some crisis emerges, I am going to remind myself that more information is not necessarily better. Once we knew to wear masks and avoid big gatherings, the remaining pandemic “breaking news” could only detract from what mattered.
Do Hard Things
If exercise has taught me anything over the years, it’s that doing hard things has a way of refocusing my attention from the global to the hyper-local, and reminding me that I have complete power over what I do in any given moment.
This has also been true volunteering. At The Meatloaf Kitchen, I can directly impact populations I care about – immigrants and the homeless – without being paralyzed by complex policy questions. During the pandemic, the most empowered I felt was bringing groceries to a woman in Brooklyn who needed help.
The easy option is always to throw up my hands and say “why me?” The hard option is to take charge and do something about it, no matter how insignificant it might seem. As I wrote about my relationship with Flora, “no matter how useless I feel in the face of great suffering, or injustice, I know that at the end of the day, there is a woman half a mile away who needs me to go get her groceries.”
Re-Center In Community
My fondest memories during the pandemic were spent with people. Zoom calls with college friends, a trip upstate with my dad, long walks with Anne and English conversation classes. Alone, it was easy to feel as though the world was ending, but with others I was reminded of how much hadn’t changed.
Now feels like the perfect moment to expand my circle. Introduce myself to neighbors. Rekindle dormant relationships. Find new ways to get involved in my community.
It’s certainly not the time to let grievances (they don’t share my politics, they never reach out first) keep me from investing in the relationships that color my everyday experience. Instead of focusing on where we disagree, I can focus on what unites us and ignore the rest.
Find My Faith
Faith will mean different things to different people. To me, it represents a belief system to help explain why we are here. What makes humans different than blades of grass? Without faith, I’m not sure how to face the future with anything but pessimism and nihilism.
For years, I let embarrassment and skepticism keep me from exploring my own faith, to my detriment. Then, I saw firsthand how comforting faith was to someone at the end of their life, and realized the importance of digging the well before I get thirsty.
The pandemic showed how quickly our lives can be upended – I want to make sure I have a source of hope to fall back on when the next crisis hits. For me, that means consistently attending church and continuing to explore prayer, but others might find value in philosophy, meditation or another spiritual practice.
Ultimately, each of us will approach the future in our own way.
If we don’t choose where to invest our energy, others will choose for us – and we’ll spend the next few years reacting to the chaos, rather than making the most of it.
– Emmett
What I’m Reading:
Don’t Quit Playing Your Music – Brendan Leonard
“At some point in the next few years, you’re going to be busy with a career, and all the other things that come with being on your own: doing laundry, buying groceries, paying bills, maybe raising a family. You will, believe it or not, still have some spare time. You can choose, as many of us do, to spend all those spare minutes or hours looking for entertainment—scrolling on your phone, watching movies or shows or short videos someone else made, reading essays or 280-character hot takes. Or, you can choose to spend that time creating something.”
Minimum Levels of Stress – Morgan Housel
“In the absence of big problems, people shift their worries to smaller ones. In the absence of small problems, they focus on petty or even imaginary ones.”
Starting From Scratch – Sam Harris
“We must rebuild, but we must also create a culture of competence and social cohesion—and transform our politics in the process. I believe this must start with historic acts of generosity and civic engagement on the part of the wealthiest residents of California.”