The Less I Know, The Happier I Am

There is power in isolation.

I recently decided to stop using YouTube. As someone who typically would spend most of my free time ingesting some sort of entertainment on there, in the five or six days it’s been since I quit I already feel light-years better. My mind is clearer and my anxiety has subsided. It has become much easier to not know what is going on in the world, which allows to me to focus on my world. And that is freedom.

For several weeks I thought it was of crucial importance that I stay up to date on news, politics, human rights, censorship, governmental lockdowns, anything that had no direct bearing on my day to day life. I was sure I needed to know what to be outraged about each and every day. Somehow, that didn’t make me a happier person.

Whenever I sit down at my computer my first impulse is to open a tab of YouTube, almost without thinking. Now I catch myself, and don’t. I don’t need some video playing in the background of whatever I’m doing. Other people can focus on all that stuff. It doesn’t improve my quality of life for me to get all worked up, get the fear hormones flowing unnecessarily, get pulled into fight-or-flight mode when I’m just sitting at the kitchen table in my apartment. That will not help me achieve nirvana, or anything else for that matter. I am calmer, happier and thinking more clearly the more I engage in my actual life. That is my choice today.

Short post this week. Staying on the path and allowing it to be revealed. Trusting my instincts. Keep it up, y'all.