What You Can Do When Everything is Awful
*Gestures Broadly*
You are not crazy. Nothing about the state of America right now is normal or even acceptable. Both your feelings and your needs are valid. It is absolutely wild that we need to go to work everyday and do our laundry when we are being gaslit by our own president.
So I’m not going to act like everything is normal and write a fun article about New Year decluttering or goal setting. That’s great and wonderful, but it’s not on my mind right now. What I’m thinking about is how we can resist. How we can stand up to oligarchy and tyranny and racism and murder.
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What You Can Do When Everything is Awful
Refuse
I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again: our spending power is one of the most impactful powers that we have. When we don’t spend our money at big box retailers, the demand for new goods goes down. When we don’t spend our money on cheap AI slop, the demand goes down. (Here’s more tips on how to opt out of AI.) Hitting companies in the pocketbook is where it hurts them. They do not care about you; they care about your money.
Maybe refusing for you means participating in a Low Spend Year. Or, maybe this means just committing to buying used items before you buy anything new. (Here’s my best thrifting tips.) Refusing is an incredibly powerful way to resist.
Prepare
The madness won’t stop at Minnesota. Be prepared for raids in your area. Know your rights. (The Immigrant Defense Project has a comprehensive guide here. I’ve also seen folks printing these out, laminating and distributing them.)
Learn what to do in different situations. I know this is hard because we can’t prepare for what people with very little training and unchecked power will do, but here is a guide to Preparing for, Protecting Against, and Treating Tear Gas and Other Chemical Irritant Exposure.
Be prepared to stand up for your community. If you are white, you have a duty to stand up for your neighbors. I am white-presenting and I know this. I also know when I’m out with my mom (Native folks are being arrested too), or with my neighbors who are visibly darker than me, I need to stand up for them and I need to stand in front of them.
Stay Informed
It’s difficult to stay informed without spiraling straight into an anxiety pit of despair. I know this because I’m right there with ya. My therapist taught me this trick: Give yourself a time limit. Look at the news or trusted organizations for 15 minutes a day. Set a timer.
Then, do something actionable. Call your representatives (the 5 Calls app makes this easy), talk to your neighbors, reach out to a friend. Volunteer. Information without action is a recipe for anxiety.
News is well, the news and let’s be real it always has a slant. Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post for God’s sake! So know that you’re never seeing the full story. (Here’s how recognize misinformation here. )
I’ve been paying close attention to what my friends in Minnesota are saying. (Sarah from Yes and Yes wrote about what it’s like in her area and it’s bad. She has all kinds of tips, suggestions and information there.)
And follow folks like How to Resist. They have more acts of non-compliance here.
Know That You Aren’t Alone
Cultivating a closer network of friends has been one of my greatest accomplishments this year. It’s a group that I know will protest with me, but also we can craft together and talk about the mundane life stuff that still exists amongst the madness.
Reaching out to other people in real life is so important right now and in the future. It’s one of the ways you can future-proof your life without money. (My friend Kara talks more about this often on her Youtube channel. Community is an essential part of retirement, especially when your childfree by choice like we are.)
Don’t Give Up the Fight
This onslaught of news and terrible thing after terrible thing is by design. It’s on purpose and although I’m hopeful for midterm elections, I’m not hopeful that the next three years will be anything other than a shit show.
Please know that we still need you. We need people to continue to live in America and resist. Now is not the time to fawn, it’s the time to fight.
In solidarity,
Melanie