Make a Difference You Can See
Human brains are not great at abstracts. We wrongly think threats we can’t see must not be too dangerous; we are terrible at understanding probability; and we need to see results from our actions to feel that we aren’t powerless.
When horrible things happen around us, like they are in many places now, our brains respond by being stressed even when we’re physically safe. Feeling like we can’t do anything to stop the bad things makes us vulnerable to anxiety, burnout, and learned helplessness, which is when people stop trying to change things even when they can change them. To keep yourself as healthy as possible right now, you need to take time to do concrete positive actions with visible results. Do this even if you think you understand all about stress and learned helplessness. This isn’t about the part of your brain that understands things intellectually - it’s about the part of your brain that logical arguments don’t reach.
What can you do? Here are some ideas:
Pick up litter at a beach or park. Keeping public spaces usable (and actually using them) is important for building community and civic engagement.
Make hats or scarves for homeless neighbors. Hand them out with some chemical handwarmer packets and some money if you can afford it. As someone wiser than me said, when you’ve made something that didn’t exist before, your brain can’t argue that you haven’t accomplished anything.
Grow vegetables or herbs. It’s good for the environment and helps lessen dependence on chain grocery stores. Now is the time to winter sow mint and lettuce in a lot of places. Get a square plastic container (like from salad or fruit) out of your recycling, poke holes in the top and bottom, fill 1/3 full with dirt and sprinkle the seeds on top. Close it up and just leave it outside! Snow or rain will get inside to water the seeds, and when it starts getting warm the clear plastic will act like a greenhouse. When the seeds sprout, you can plant them in a pot. When your plants have grown, give some to your neighbors.
Sign up for a pen pal program to exchange letters with someone in a nursing home, an incarcerated person, or a homebound veteran. Look for a program with clear guidelines that you agree with. (Is everyone on the same page about whether this is romantic or platonic? Is it clear what you can and can’t send? Is there support if you have issues?)
Teach someone a useful skill that you know. Sharing knowledge is an important form of mutual aid. Changing a tire, mending clothes, baking bread - all those are skills that can help someone out in a pinch.
Make a plan to do one of these things or something like them every week, especially if you are spending time reading or posting on social media. The jury is out on whether anything we say on social media actually changes other people’s minds, but even if it does, it’s happening in the ether. Your brain needs you to balance it out with action in the world you can see and touch.
Finally, if you’ve read through all these things and can only think “I can’t do that…” or “that wouldn’t work…” consider that you might be burnt out now. We’ve been through a lot already. If you’re feeling that nothing you can do will change things, talk to someone you trust and get help finding resources to start getting better. We’re in this together.