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by sinac 1483 days ago
People who truly care are few and far between in the grand scheme of things. You care and that is something wonderful. Don’t lose that. You seem to be one of the good ones.

Seems like part of the challenge you face is that you have a ‘values’ conflict with how the majority of the world operates. You call it the 10% brokenness which may translate to a value of competence or responsibility or something else, but it’s worth figuring it out. You want to figure it out because knowing this will help you reflect on each work day and answer the questions of: ‘did I live a day in accordance with my value’ ‘did I do things that contributed to strengthening that value’ ‘did I increase the impact of this value on the world around me’.

If you feel bad about the broken world it helps to be very cognizant daily about what is in your circle of control and what isn’t. Most grand frustration comes from trying to control something that is outside of our circle of control today. If you combine these two things, you may find a life’s calling where you try to over time increase what is in your circle of control related to correcting this 10% brokenness.

Three things to remember:

1) You are not alone in this feeling. Others of us see it too. 2) Your frustration is actually the physical manifestation of a call to action…you just need a different action. Right now it seems like the action is thinking more about this which isn’t a helpful loop for you. How can you channel this? 3) Focus on the current situation, not the long dark decline of all the things. Thinking too far out can psyche put any human. A huge part of what they call perseverance is actually presence

Additional tactical things that help:

1) Find collaborators and employers who share this value you have. Having that is huge for daily well being. Find people that believe what you believe and are willing to work toward that

2) Read Rest by Alex Pang and implement the active rests he describes to get your mind to switch off of this values conflict. Ironically, it will make you better at your craft.