Who likes to be indignant

In 2020, outrage has become society’s newest drug. Of course, for him, such a habit is more acceptable than alcohol, but it is more addictive than anything you can swallow, smoke or inject. Because compared to heroin or methamphetamine, which are clearly harmful, anger seems pretty damn healthy.

We often hear: “political parties are destroying the world”, “Their supporters hate our country”, “people are so selfish”, “the state does little for the poor”, “Women don’t have enough rights” or “Men don’t have enough rights”, “These people – racists “,” those people do not see their capabilities “,” President-rapist “,” Capitalism exploits everyone who is not 1% of the elect. “

Resentment is like many other things that initially seem pleasant, but over time devour us from the inside. And this is even more insidious than most vices, because we do not even consciously admit that we are enjoying ourselves.
– Tim Kreider

We like to be angry because at this moment we feel smart. We think that we care about this more than those indifferent people (but we instill this in ourselves), because we believe that we are more informed, that we have the necessary ideas to fix everything, that we must be responsible. When we call someone a Nazi, sexist or fanatic, that is not our opinion, but the opinion of society. When we label someone or, worse yet, try to ruin their career, we tend to think they deserve it.

This is an amazing level of arrogance.

The biggest problem with resentment, however, is that it is being turned into a weapon. Outrage is compared to insanity because it is a strong emotion, and strong emotions cause people to take action. This is why political parties, instead of joining together to find solutions, drive their supporters into madness and anger against other parties. Corporations now do this too. They use your outrage to sell their products, like Gillette with their ill-fated ad campaign and Nike using Colin Kaepernick to attract socially conscious consumers to their brand.

Nike’s sales are up 31% after they launched ads, which saw the brand grow by $ 6 billion. Do you think they placed this ad to take a public stand? They used your outrage to cash in, and they did it.

However, the main fault is the media, because without your attention they would not have this business model. They have to keep you clicking and tweaking or their ad dollars will be wasted. This is why all the information becomes more sensational, and it is no longer about reporting the usual facts. A headline that makes you feel emotion makes you click on it. The article pisses you off, and you go to comments to argue with people. Social media trends that you, of course, participate in.

Brainwash you, then do it again.

Now, instead of riding a horse and telling you that you are going to be a fool in this game if you don’t stop participating, I’m going to take a different approach. If you are one of those people who constantly check the news and social media, are always angry at what they see, or worse, angry at the opinions of other people, I have a really important question:

How does this happen?

I honestly want to know. Does constant reading, likes, retweets and comments make your life better with your indignation? How does this actually affect you? Does it help you earn more? Getting along well with your family? Does it leave you feeling satisfied?

Did you achieve any goals thanks to this?

I suppose it only pissed you off even more and pissed you off. Why not? Spending all of your time in anger will not make you calm and peaceful, it will only lead to more anger. If all you want to look for is the bad side of life, then how the hell and when can you be happy?

One of the best decisions I made a couple of years ago was to disconnect from Twitter and Facebook news and click the “see fewer articles like this” button, which are just trying to make us feel negative. You will not believe how calm you become about life. It’s one thing to see something wrong in the world and work to change it, but what’s the point of resenting something that you can’t change or that you have extremely limited influence on?

Here’s a better idea: use this time and energy to actively improve your life and the lives of those around you. We all have influence in different areas of life where our actions and words can really make a difference. Where we can be an example for our loved ones. When we try to make the people around us feel happy, valuable, and important, it motivates them to make others feel the same way. It is a powerful force for good.

If you don’t, and instead continue to resent, your anger will consume you. You will find that the only people who want to be close to you are fellow activists and outraged drug addicts. Others do not want to constantly talk about what makes you angry right now, just because you think that this is the most important thing in the world. An ordinary person has enough events in life, he does not need it.

It is important to remember that yes, there are more injustices than you can imagine, but neither you nor anyone else will save the world tomorrow alone. Your anger and martyr complex only harm you. I am sure that this way of thinking pervades your outer life and makes you unhappy. The fact is that the world today, despite the problems, abominations and tragedies, is much better than it was a hundred years ago. And the world a hundred years ago was better than two hundred years ago.

In other words, the world is not changing as quickly as you would like it to be, but it is still improving every day. So here’s a free tip for you: step away from the screen, go outside and sit in the sun. Spend time with your friends and talk about the things that make you happy. Hell, go and do something to make you happy. You have to balance the bad with the good. This is much more enjoyable than spending all the time staring at the screen, quarreling with people and worrying about problems that are probably less pressing than they seem on social media.

What I want to end with is probably the most important one: your anger does not make you right. The fact that you are angry about a particular topic more than other people does not make your opinion more correct or their opinion less correct. This does not mean that you are some kind of righteous warrior, and they are a piece of shit, because their emotions or opinions are not on the same level as yours.