Striving For Optimism In An Ever More Apocalyptic World

As we’re hanging on by our fingernails.

It’s 2 in the morning. Again.

I just got home from a late-night emergency visit to my Mom’s house. She fell. She’s been overextending herself a lot lately. She got dizzy and tripped on the step up from the living room.

She’s doing ok, but just barely. I asked her to leave the front door open and will sleep with my phone near me tonight. Just in case.

I got home and reheated the organic veggie pasta with avocados that I made earlier this evening with the local produce from our Johnson’s Backyard Garden CSA box to eat.

I figured I’d eat even though it’s late. No need to go to bed with an upset and empty stomach and add insult to injury.

I feel like I’m living in this weird space between heaven and hell lately. Where everything is good, but most things are actually pretty bad.

I’m also feeling stress about being late on rent. That’s lingering in the background of things and has been over the past couple of weeks.

I still haven’t figured out why my left breast keeps hurting.

And I got into an argument earlier this evening over the lack of clarity that seems to plague me no matter what I try to unblock my communication and intentionality in life.

On top of this, and despite doing my best to avoid the mainstream news, the constant low-level awareness of tragedy lurks just below the surface of my everyday thoughts. The 6th mass extinction is accelerating, Trump is expected (by some) to drive voter turnout in 2020 and win the next election, and Pensacola just joined the list of mass shooting venues for the year. Ah, but the new jobs report seems to show that the economy is doing just fine.

It’s all just feeling overwhelming.

Where did the love go? When did it get so difficult to stay shining brightly? Is it just time for me to clean the lens of the very big, black camera above?

Am I jumping the gun and telling myself I know where the story is going in the future, and it doesn’t look good at all?

Is this all just a big test?

The world is collapsing, more for some than others.

Yemen, Syria, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo. Homeless people the world over. Apocalypse probably has a very different meaning to them.

The people in these nations and states face epidemic levels of violence, food insecurity, displacement, and a serious lack of access to basics like water and essential healthcare.

These folks are really suffering in a way that I cannot even begin to wrap my mind around.

But as I sit in my warm, comfortable home in South Austin, I can’t help but feeling a bit like I’m sitting by the fire, watching warily out into the world, listening to the howls of the coyotes as I sit with my torch at the ready. It’s like I can feel disaster circling.

This feeling of encroaching dread is a very dangerous thing. Because it is the very thing that can stop joy and take away warmth. It is the most dangerous thing of all. It is the hope stealer.

Slowly, menacingly, inevitably, the danger is getting closer and closer to home. And sometimes it feels like there is very little I can do to stop it.

Like a dementor, but in real life, it can sap the pleasure away from the day to day things we are still getting to experience that are good and wholesome and based in love.

If we let it.

Endurance, perspective, and a commitment to optimism.

I’m sure we’ll scrape by again, and catch up to ourselves if we run fast enough. That’s what we tell ourselves.

We are capable beings, my people and me. We should be able to figure this adulting thing out. I hope.

I know there are people in this world who have it far worse than I do right now. Far worse.

In fact, I kind of feel bad for being up to my eyeballs in angst right now. Like I don’t deserve the privilege of being in existential despair.

So every time we dig a big enough life-hole for ourselves, and I begin to feel this feeling of hopelessness, I try my hardest to pull up my big girl panties and try my hardest to find peace in the moment.

I breathe into my belly. I try to get present with myself. I look for the silver linings.

I remind myself of the gratitude I have for the many abundant and rich things I have in my life.

My kids are healthy and happy, mostly. I have a healthy relationship with an amazing man who also happens to be an awesome father. We have a roof over our heads and plenty to eat. We have the luxury of following the stressful but meaningful paths of being ourselves in this world, rather than being confined to the template of a static role.

I’m committed to the role of holding space for the new story of interbeing to emerge. I’m aware that we are in a transition period between the old story of separation, and the new embrace of love over fear.

And this commitment has to be strong enough to weather the despair, for without it I’d be a goner.

What is in our power now?

What are the small things we can choose to stay with our optimism?

We are always faced with a choice in how we choose to be in the face of disasters. This choice is not a one-shot deal, but rather a repetition of choices over time.

We can choose to either start grieving the loss of all we know and love. Or we can choose to enjoy the days that we have for now. We can celebrate the individual little successes that we achieve.

We can accept the possibility that we will just experience pain, and make the choice to enjoy what we are able to when we can.

We can, as Ray Poole puts it, be realistically optimistic.

The journey itself can provide a little motivation when you begin to chip away at the little steps between where you are now and where you want to be.

This shift in attitude doesn’t guarantee that we will find our way through the fog to better days ahead. It doesn’t mean we are promised to discover a cure for what ails us, either personally or globally. It doesn’t mean we will solve the overwhelming problems we all face.

After all, death is the foregone conclusion of all life in the end. We can resist this fact, or we can choose to just accept it. We can use it to help us find purpose and meaning in the days that we have when we are here. And we can relax inside, knowing that someday all we love will die, but in the meantime, we can enjoy being alive. However that looks.

But a better attitude gives me the strength to get up in the morning and face another day. And a better day is one less crappy experience on my roster — EVEN IF the world is going to hell in a handbasket.

I can make healthier choices and become better informed about the little things I can do to make life feel better in the moment. I can focus on the little wins and stop staring at the looming and overwhelming disaster that seems to be racing me down.

I can make something beautiful. I can choose to take a deep breath and lean into the inherent discomfort of being.

I can write this post and put a little perspective out into the world that might turn around and help someone else who is currently hanging on by their fingertips.

Even if I’m wrong, being optimistic isn’t going to hurt anything. And in the end, it is almost guaranteed to help.

Because ultimately all we can control is our reactions to this world we encounter. We can do our best, and we can still fail. And perhaps that is the biggest lesson of all. If we can learn to gracefully accept our mortality then we can choose to enjoy the time we have to be alive. No matter what.

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Kaia Tingley is a writer, artist, podcaster, digital strategy nerd, and sometimes hot-tempered supernova with a wild, free soul. You can find her on Instagram here or on LinkedIn here.