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It also changed how safe ordinary places feel. I sat in church and found the exits. I go there to be still, to sing off key, to remember I am not the center of anything. Lately the hum in my chest is louder. Part of it is the news cycle. Part of it is how our feeds turn pain into a reaction sport. Takes arrive before anyone breathes. I hate that I sometimes feed it.

I notice it most at home. My kid runs in to show me a Lego build that only makes sense if you are five and present. I nod while my thumb keeps moving. Blink and the moment is gone. There is a simple emergency trick I learned years ago. Do not say someone call 911. Point at a person. You. Call. Now. If everyone is responsible then no one is. My phone habits have that same bystander effect. When everything feels urgent, nothing is.

Zoom out and it is not soothing. Every generation says this is the most polarized era. Maybe that is always true for whoever is alive. What I know is it feels harder to hold a middle when each side treats the other as a cartoon. I have done it too. It is easier to argue with a caricature than a neighbor. The internet rewards the worst version of that.

I keep thinking about unity. The word has always been aspirational here. Maybe unity is not about agreement. Maybe it is about carrying sharp differences without grabbing sharper tools. I do not expect a country of hundreds of millions to sing the same note. I expect myself to stay human in the chorus. The stranger online is still someone’s kid. Someone’s parent. Someone who also has a shoulder that hurts from typing all day.

Health is the other drum in my head. I sit more than my body was built for. I stare at a rectangle and wonder why my back aches and my mood thins. I used to think the fix was brute force. Run long. Sweat hard. Become new. It helps, but what helps more are the boring things that look like doing nothing. Yoga in a room that smells like eucalyptus. A few minutes of prayer that my to do list insists I cannot spare. The long walk to the mailbox. Bed without the phone. Every time I make that trade, the return shows up later. Not dramatic. Just a little more patience. A little less static. I notice my kid asking me to watch his golf swing again. The hour I lose comes back as better work and fewer dumb arguments.

I am tempted to solve life with a spreadsheet. I heard about someone breaking the day into five minute blocks and thought that must be the way. Then I remembered I do not need more slices. I need fewer plates. When I say I ran out of time, I usually mean I gave it away in tiny pieces to nothing. The fix is not mystical. Wake before the noise. Read a few pages. Eat food that looks like food. Text a friend back. Lift something heavy. Tell the truth. Fail. Start again tomorrow. Nobody is counting.

There is also a question I keep asking about what it means to be informed. There is a difference between being aware and being saturated. Awareness helps me be a better neighbor. Saturation makes me a worse one. Doomscrolling does not make me useful. It makes me loud and tired. Choosing limits is not apathy. It is stewardship. Close the app. Call a friend. Cook dinner. Help a neighbor. Take a long breath. Think before posting. If the next awful clip rolls by, look away and pick a single concrete thing to do.

I am 32 and I am trying to be honest about cost. The cost I pay most often is my mental health. I like to think of myself as positive and resilient. I also skip the things that keep me that way. I chase work metrics and skip sleep. I chase growth and skip walks. I chase output and skip prayer. The result is predictable. I get upside down and wonder why I feel thin and short with the people I love. The simple truth is that calm is a skill and it has to be trained. My brain is part of my body. Treat it that way or pay for it.

Scheduling helps, but only if I guard it. Blocks on a calendar are fake if I do not defend them. Two hours for outbound is not two hours if I scroll for forty five minutes and answer busy emails for thirty. I did not work. I looked busy. That is not the same. Time management is not a hack. It is character played out in minutes.

Some days I am angry at the country for being the country. Then something small and local gets better and I feel a little hope. Boring fixes do not trend. They still matter. Most change looks like spreadsheets and phone calls. Not fire. Not a viral clip.

I wish I could promise myself I will hold this posture for good. Truth is I will forget by Thursday. I will get pulled back into the feed. I will chase a number. I will look up and realize I missed something small at home that I cannot replay. Then I will start again. The work is not to become perfect. The work is to return faster.

There is a line I want to live by and teach my kids. Opt out of the hottest take. Choose curiosity over contempt. Choose limits over access. Choose presence over performance. When I fail, begin again. When the world feels like it is happening to me, shrink the frame until something becomes possible. Call one friend. Hold one kid. Make one good meal. Take one long breath. Decide what it means after the adrenaline is gone.

I do not know if that counts as hope. It feels like a way through. On weeks like this, a way through is enough.

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—Troy & Daniel

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