Bummer City!
02.22.16 | Share: Share on Twitter Share on Facebook
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Totally Married Podcast
Episode 237
Elizabeth and Andy discuss the hypothetical - would you rather have the chance to re-do or re-live a week from your past or go on an all expenses paid vacation anywhere in the world in your present? Then, after a few sad stories involving Elizabeth’s past pets, they give their unqualified advice to listener questions about how to cope with a tender heart in a world that feels so ugly sometimes and whether or not to continue giving life (wedding/baby) gifts to a friend who has not given you any life gifts? Enjoy!
9 Comments!
I am so there with the writer-inner about feeling overwhelmed by the mountain we have to climb achieve change. I work at an organization that supports survivors of sexual assault and domestic abuse and it can make you feel like Sisyphus rolling the rock up a hill. Some people call it compassion fatigue.
What helps me is to focus on the victories, and to realize that the book isn’t closed on the things I consider “failures”-people can always come around. And ultimately I try to remember that I can’t help anyone if I’m not taking care of myself. Those sound simple, but it can be really hard in practice.
I also think it’s important to see the shades of gray. It’s really easy to think that things are either “right” or “wrong”-people are either “good” or “evil”-that’s not going to win you any points with people. No one likes to hear that they’re screwing up the world, but people are much more open to hear an easy way that they can make a difference.
An example for the writer-inner: My brother (who’s a vegetarian) convinced me to go meatless some days by giving me some stat about the environment. I’ve never been a vegetarian but he was not pushy or saying that I was part of the problem, he just said “hey, if everyone ate vegetarian once a week it would be the same as taking X amount of cars of the road.” That spoke to me and once a week seemed doable. Now I probably eat vegetarian 3-4 days a week.
Keep trying though! You care and have passion for something; so many people don’t have that and it’s actually sad for them.
I LOVE this advice, thank you so much!! You are absolutely right about self care being important and also seeing shades of grey. I’m going to take this to heart 🙂
Great advice. This question totally hit home for me too. I work for an environmental nonprofit and I’ve become really frustrated and pretty jaded when I see people who just don’t give a crap about it and many other issues I care deeply about. I find it really helpful for my sanity to try not to place blame, in a similar vain to what you said about seeing grey. When I know they “should” care about an issue, but don’t, I remind myself that they simply haven’t been informed in the correct way, don’t have the clear and complete perspective, or focusing on problems is simply too painful. The people who actively care and dedicate themselves to these things are the exception, because they’re going against humans’ shared psychological nature to protect ourselves from pain.
Another more tangible thing I do is actively follow good news. They have positive current event sites for specific issues, and general websites like Upworthy (I know Upworthy is not a serious news resource, but it does put a smile on my face and often brings me to tears of joy :)). It’s amazing the difference it can make in your day to be reminded of progress! It’s hard, when the function of regular news is almost only to tell of bad things happening, because they generally require action. But there’s progress happening constantly - you just have to look for it!
I wanted to let you know that I LOVE your podcasts. This particular episode left me crying several times while I was walking my dog!… Usually you have me in tears of laughter, not sadness. I’m sure it was great for all the people driving by, wondering what the crazy, crying girl was so upset about.
Thank you for all the happiness your podcasts bring me 🙂
Hey! I’m a newbie to the Totally Laime experience; this week’s podcast is very interesting and I wanted to comment that given the hypothetical choice you pose on the podcast, I would choose to go back in time to one very specific week where I did something I regret deeply, and choose the opposite. I wonder if I’m unusual or weird in wishing to revisit something negative, rather than something positive? Or was the question purely a re-live with no option to redo?
If that’s the case I’m going on an all expenses paid vacation! 🙂
Omg I made that comment before I listened to the whole thing… Definitely crying along with you… ❤️
I would totally choose a vacation. Sorry not sorry. All of my experiences — good and bad — have made me who I am today, and I wouldn’t want to butterfly effect myself into another person. But I’d also just rather make new memories than go back and re-live something I’ve already lived/try to change something that was meant to be the way it was.
Hi! Every time I listen to you guys talking about unleashed dogs, it really fascinates me. I think you guys make great points, since in the US it seems that the culture of do-walking is to have them leashed. I live in Buenos Aires, and here, as in most of South America, there are a lot of street dogs (not so much in the city, but in the outskirts for sure). And the culture of dog-walking is much different. Everyone here has a dog, and 90% of the time they are not leashed. And when they are, it’s usually because they are walking with a dog-walker, who have up to 15 dogs being walked at the same time (see photo https://alisonanddon.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/blog-p1270031.jpg). Here there isn’t so much aggression with dogs, but I believe it’s because the culture as a whole doesn’t see leashes as necessary, and dogs are constantly being huddled together. I’m not saying it’s right, but it is the way it is. Just an interesting tidbit.
That said, I do think in your neighborhood it’s necessary to leash dogs since you have personally encountered problems. So hopefully that poodle owner learns what’s up, or moves to Buenos Aires.
I’m way behind on my podcasts and wish I had heard this one earlier. As to feeling overwhelmed and burned out, a very important thing not to overlook is that life is way way better for the vast majority of people on Earth than it has ever been looking at every measure over the past 50 to 100 years: violence is *down* worldwide, the number of casualties in armed conflict is down, poverty is down, life expectancy is up, etc. etc. By every measure life is better for people today than its been in the past 100 years. (I’m on my phone now and don’t have citations but this is all absolutely supported by data.)
Maybe the reason it doesn’t seem like it is that we are far more aware of all the problems. And also we hear everyone’s opinions now. But the number of true activists has always been small. We think now that “everyone” protested the Vietnam War or whatnot but it was a very small minority that even opposed the war for most of it. Same with Civil Rights, Women’s Movement, any cause you can think of. Until recently people thought the oceans were just giant garbage dumps. Air quality is far better in LA now than it was in the 60s.
When you start to hate humanity, remind yourself that People are amazing and even teenagers now can invent things that clean the ocean or detect diseases or provide clean water. It’s all a matter of focus. You can’t save every animal or solve every problem, but you can absolutely make a difference and make the world a better place.