What is going on? 😐️ 

No matter how much you might try to disengage from politics or the world outside of your own concern - you can’t help but notice where we are in the world isn’t great at the moment.

I think thats probably an understatement.. 🤦 

There’s also a super valid point when people criticise others for disengaging as well - “If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem”.

And if people espousing that sort of statement are being completely honest - it probably translates more directly into something like - Why are you being a coward?

Indeed - a question I’ve asked myself often - is it cowardice to detach from external events?

Is it our collective duty to rise up and put an end to the madness and suffering in the world?

Even if you can’t directly influence whats going - by default should you be shouldering part of the hypothetical, moral weight of geopolitical events?

Beset on all sides 🛡️ 

Well it all depends.

I remember clearly the 2016 Nice Truck Attack - a terrorist attack killing 86 people and injuring scores more.

I remember it because I was sat in the Mediterranean ocean as part of a “Rapid Response Force” - ready to deploy to foreign soil, in aid of the UK’s foreign policy.

I can remember the raw emotion in the room. A company of Marines talking and speculating about what was to come. After all, these acts were often the precursor to a war on terror.

We were best placed to deploy and become the swift sword of justice.

We did nothing.

It dawned on me years later how much that event had an affect on my life - I spent years and years after, chasing this misplaced dream of Special Forces. Under the banner of “Giving to something more than myself”.

YEARS spent chasing an illusion.

The reality is simply this…

We have power over our minds and subsequently OUR actions. Not outside events.

Why I think Stoicism is the answer 💡 

If everyone adopted this attitude - the world would look very different.

If everyone woke up and said -

“My job today is to take care of the task in front of me, bear with my fellow people and to act virtuously - as much as I can humanly manage”.

Would we see the kind of problems we see now?

We often fail to remember much of what we see is an opinion - NOT fact.

Much of what we hear is gossip - NOT truth.

So here it is:

🟢 If you switch off the news when you’ve had enough of anxiety inducing headlines.

🟢 If you delete social media because you’re sick of the vitriol.

🟢 If you disengage with people who lack critical thought or actively seek to harm you.

🟢 If you choose not to sellotape yourself to a road to save the planet…

🟢 If you choose to deal only with what is in front of you and accept what is in your control…

Then you’re part of the solution. ⚡️ 

Life has a habit of throwing plenty of problems and challenges our way.

Deal with those first.

Is it then Cowardice to detach from wider issues? Is it slacking on your social burden to choose to pull towards your own concerns?

I would respond with the time honoured words of the OG Stoic… 👴 

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