Navigating Chaos—How to Stay Sane When the World has Gone Crazy

The world’s going to hell in a handbasket!

Sometimes it feels like the world’s gone crazy and you don’t understand people at all. You can’t imagine why things are going a certain way, and you feel a loss of control, with the associated anxiety and stress. You hear and read people saying things that make you furious and frustrated. You can’t imagine how they could think and say those things. You look at events and see them ending in disaster—disaster that could be easily foreseen if only people would listen and understand. It’s easy to stay in a state of simmering rage, along with healthy doses of incredulity and bewilderment. During these times, it’s more important than ever to understand your reactions and emotional state, and take steps toward healthy and constructive responses to what you’re going through.

Focus on what you can control

There will always be actions and events in the world that are totally against our worldview and that we absolutely don’t understand. When we see them transpiring, it can be easy to feel anxiety, worry, and anger. We might feel we’re unable to control anything, but that’s never really true. There will always be ways to redirect that angry and worrisome energy into productive outlets. We can engage in activities that help to characterize our perspectives and to spread those perspectives to try change others’ minds. This can be as simple as writing letters to express our views, or it can be passionate activism involving a range of activities.

It’s also important to make the distinction between the things we can control and the things we can change. We can control what we do and how we react, but our actions may not lead to the change we desire. While this can be frustrating, it’s way more healthy to be out there doing everything we can than stewing in our own bitterness.

Find healthy outlets for your ire

When we’re frustrated and angry, it can be easy to lose control of our words and actions. This may take the form of internal emotional turmoil—especially when our emotions are undirected or there’s no one at whom to direct them. It may take the form of rants to whoever is closest. This may be a family member or friend (even one who agrees with us), who happens to be at hand when we need to vent. This may be a healthy way to process our emotions, but it does take some groundwork to make sure the rantee is not feeling attacked or targeted. It’s great to have a friend who’s willing to let us blow off steam, but we have to be sensitive to that person’s emotional state. No one is prepared to hear a rant all the time.

Our outlets may also be totally unrelated to what we’re angry about. An intense exercise session is always a good way to offload some angry and anxious energy. If we can incorporate something like martial arts or boxing, it can be especially therapeutic. We can react strongly with our anger (at a punching dummy or speed bag), without doing anyone any harm. This will allow us to have a much more rational (and likely more effective) approach when we come back to facing the issue or person we’re angry about.

Keep a healthy dose of perspective

When things start to really look crazy, it is helpful to focus on what is not crazy in our lives. First, focus on the fact that we have roofs over ours head and food to eat—we have what we need to live. Spending time with our families doing normal family stuff is a great way to remember how lucky we are and how good we have it. Thinking about how comfortable we are in our warm bed, under our roof on a rainy night, taking notice of the slight pudge around our middle and remembering that we always have enough to eat—all of this intentional awareness and gratitude can go a long way toward keeping our anger in perspective.

We can also remember that we live in a time and place where we can express our anger without fear of consequences; not everyone does. We can look at the champions for our worldview and take comfort in the fact that even the most healthy society goes awry periodically, and we’ve always had smart passionate people who work tirelessly to bring us back on track. We can reflect on those people, try to follow their example, and be grateful. A little bit of gratitude goes a long way.

Don’t internalize the vitriol

Finally, don’t make your anger part of who you are. When we have anger in our hearts for an extended period, it can become part of our identities. It’s very important to not let that happen. As was said before, gratitude is a big part of that. It’s also important to find a balance—make sure part of your life is given over to inner-peace and positivity. It may be hard, and I’m not suggesting denying what you’re feeling, but take some time to take a break from both the chaos and your reactions to it. Take a peace and positivity break—intentionally and regularly. Finally, always keep part of your mind focused on perspective. Don’t let all of yourself be given over to what is wrong with the world—save a big part for what is right.

As a wise man once said, we can be the change we seek, but we also have to be ourselves.