How do you cope with living in this depressing era

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Posting here for traffic.

I know the news is always negative and every decade has its bad moments but the 2020s seem particularly shit. I'm in my 30s and I can't remember ever living in such a depressing time like this.

Epstein files, rise of the far right globally, ICE, student debt, rising house prices, billionaire oligarchs controlling media and governments, climate change, the list goes on...

This is the world we have to live in right now. How do you deal with it and not despair? I guess limiting news consumption is an idea but isn't that just burying your head in the sand?

It feels like we're all in some kind of pressure cooker of hatred, divisikn and angst and its not healthy. A friend suffered a racist attack last week. It was caught on video and yhe perpetrator had 0 shame, he was like a man possessed. It's really shook me how emboldened ignorant racists have become thanks to the likes of Trump/ Reform etc

I was around in the 1970s and that was a shitty decade. At least we didn't have social media stirring things like today though.

Yes I know there have been bad times before but social media amplifies everything 100 times. I wish it could be banned for everyone sometimes

It’s always been like this. Every era has depressing moments. As you age you will learn to keep calm and carry on ( sorry for the cliche) but politicians will always lie , wars will rage and taxes will be raised. Just focus on what you can control.
I don’t do social media- maybe that’s the key!

I try to ration my news consumption and try to focus more on the things in my life where I might actually have some influence.

I did wonder if it's just my age making me feel like this tbh. I look back on 90s and 00s as if they were a golden era but there was all sorts of bad things then too. I was just too young to notice

Just get off social media. This stuff isn't actually happening in the real world around you.

I think with social media news is very much all around us wherever we turn whereas years ago the news was still there but our viewing of it was much more limited. There will always be things that are happening that are depressing but try to focus on the positives and the little things that bring you joy

Also maybe becoming a parent has made me sensitive to things. I worry for my DC

Most people will say they’ve lived through worse decades etc. but I agree it’s rather depressing atm.
how I cope -
Regular exercise for endorphins
Don’t watch the news - I listen to radio 4 which has regular news but its briefer and feels less ‘sensationalised’
Travel to beautiful places when time and money allows
Maintain contact with friends and family that I love

World isn't a lot different now than 10-20-30-30-50 years ago. Before that a lot of people lived through world wars.

Oh and be careful who I follow on social media !

Curate your sm algorithm to show things that spark joy. Restrict your intake of news.

Turn off your phone, have a break from it all. Our non stop media feed makes us feel it’s constant. Back in the day you’d read the newspaper in the morning, get on with your day and watch the news at night and then go to bed.

Look at cat videos and delete all news feeds.

Me too but, as a teenager, we had great fun

Avoiding too much reading about things of which I have no control over (Epstein files, ICE, American politics in general). It's not burying your head in the sand. All you're doing by forcing yourself to read about terrible things is depressing and horrifying yourself, and you can't improve anything in that state. If you do nothing with the news other than make yourself unhappy by reading it, you may as well have not read it in the first place.

With that said, another thing I do is supporting causes which I can make a difference to (mostly charities atm).

Finding joy in the small things.

I know it's pretty much a cliche at this point but getting out in nature, even when it's cold and grey outside. I'm useless at meditation but walking seems to improve my state of mind the way other people find mindfulness helpful.

Reading fiction, good TV and films, general escapism.

Creating or making something. Writing, crafts, baking, whatever. Something small to work on that you can see the results of.

I was in my 20s then and yes I do remember having fun even while we had 3 day weeks, strikes and blackouts.

I don’t watch the news, engage with news on socials very low level and focus on me and my family instead. So much of the big stuff I can do very little about, but I can make a difference in my own world.

I'm focussing on enjoying time with my kids, partner, my parents and friends. Getting out in the fresh air as much as possible and baking a new recipe. I can be a good boss, be understanding and caring with my team members. Volunteer in the community to give back a little.

I just get on with my.life
Not on SM
Its like the Trueman show, people watching peoples made up lives
Run, swim, cycle, bake, garden,go for walks,meet friends and family
I can only live my life,no one elses

No news, delete instagram

book Holidays, book tickets for concerts and shows, have fun with my kids, big days out, theme park, nights out….. etc

Just disengage from social media - you will feel much better.

My childhood was spent in Ireland in the 80’s, which the news reels will tell you was a depressing place - the troubles, bomb threats, high unemployment etc. My own father was on strike for a long time, although as kids we weren’t aware of this.

My overwhelming memories of my childhood are happy and carefree because my parents kept me away from the worst of it, and we didn’t have 24 hour rolling news intruding on our lives.

Er, I hate to break it to you but…it literally is.

It is a spectacularly bad time to be honest. Politically, we went through a few decades where politics was boring and all the parties were the same, all fighting to be in the centre. The EU was regulating the shape of bananas, and the US behaved like the 'leader of the free world'. We were upset about our forces being sent to fight oil wars and we protested about it, but it was still faraway from us. But with Ukraine we have war on our doorstep, the leader of the free world is acting like a deranged dictator, Russia is constantly sabotaging EU countries including us, I dont even have the brain space to think about China. And yes, having kids magnifies this to highly emotional levels. All this to say, you are not weird for feeling like this. But as other PP have said, the only way to go forward is to keep your focus local. Your kids, their school, your street, your town, your family, your friends. There's no point worrying about things we cannot influence or control.

There’s an easy fix for that delete it! You don’t need to ban it to get off it.

Unless you happen to be in the middle of a protest in Minneapolis, no, it isn't. It's all overdramatised, overblown or often just made up on social media. If you switch off, you don't think about it. You can't bloody change any of it anyway, why doom scroll?

I just read an interview with Jung Chang, and last week I watched a documentary about the Nuremberg trials. Honestly, get some perspective, our lives are so comfortable.

Yes, yes, I know some MNers have terrible lives, but I'm guessing they're not the ones starting threads worrying about shit like house prices, climate change and US politics.