The Cost of Staring at What Makes You Angry

The microphones were off. Lynne Grigelevich and I had just finished an hour of North of Normal that included a phone call from someone wanting to volunteer at the radio station, people knocking on the studio window, a surprisingly long conversation about death, and several moments when neither of us knew where the conversation was going next. It was one of those episodes where we simply let the conversation go where it wanted to go.

We were still sitting in the studio talking when Lynne asked me to pull my outro back up. “I’m gonna say something, and I want you to take it totally positively,” she said, which is always a promising way to start a sentence.

Near the end of the outro, I had told listeners that I hoped they would leave the hour with “a little less heaviness.” Lynne stopped me there and suggested I change it. Instead of wishing them less heaviness, what if I wished them more lightness?

I immediately understood what she meant, and then I laughed because I do this to Justin all the time. He’ll say something out loud and I’ll interrupt him with, “Don’t say that.” Sometimes I literally tell him, “Do not say that out loud.” I believe words matter. I pay attention to the way we talk about ourselves and our lives, and yet there it was in something I had written myself.

Less heaviness.

I had focused on the thing I wanted gone instead of the thing I wanted more of.

It seemed like such a tiny correction, but it connected directly to something Lynne had said earlier in the show. We had been talking about the enormous amount of information coming at us every day. What we watch, what we read, what we listen to, what we scroll through, and what we choose to share with other people. Lynne talked about being conscious of where we put our energy because, as she put it, “where you put your energy is what you’re going to grow.”

Then she asked a question.

“What do you want to grow?”

That immediately made me think about riding my mountain bike.

I learned pretty quickly that if there is a giant rock in the trail and I stare directly at the giant rock, I am almost certainly going to ride directly into it. The same thing happens with a tree. There can be plenty of room beside it and an entirely clear line around the obstacle, but if my eyes stay fixed on the tree, somehow my bike and I are going to become intimately acquainted with that tree.

I have to look where I want to go.

The rock does not disappear because I stop staring at it. The tree does not disappear either. I still need to know it is there, account for it, and possibly change my line because of it. But I cannot keep staring at the obstacle and expect myself to move safely around it.

That feels especially relevant to me right now.

There is a lot happening around us that we cannot control. There are things worth being angry about, things worth grieving, things that frighten us, and things happening in our communities and in the world that deserve our attention. Neither Lynne nor I was suggesting that we ignore those things or pretend everything is wonderful. The obstacles are still in the trail.

But I have been thinking a lot about where I am looking.

Lately, I’ve noticed myself wanting to be more critical online. I’ll see something and immediately have something to say about it. Something clever. Something sharp. Something that might make the people who agree with me nod their heads. Sometimes, quite frankly, I just want to be nasty.

There. I said it.

That temptation is absolutely in me. There are moments when pointing out what someone else is doing wrong feels satisfying, especially when I really, really think they are wrong. But lately I have caught myself before I do it and asked what I am actually adding.

Am I helping someone understand something differently? Am I making anything better? Or am I just getting a little hit of satisfaction from pointing at another person and telling everyone why I think they are wrong?

There is plenty of that available already. I do not need to contribute more.

I told Lynne that I mostly stay away from the local Facebook pages now. I don’t spend much time reading the arguments. I share the good stuff instead. Beautiful places, people doing good things, local stories, animals, and things that remind me there is still a tremendous amount of goodness happening around us.

That does not mean I don’t know the other stuff exists. I see it. Sometimes I feel it deeply, and sometimes I want to react to it.

Lynne and I talked about that distinction too. She described the work of moving from reacting to responding. We cannot always control the first reaction. Anger can show up. Fear can show up. Sadness can show up. Apparently, the desire to write a nasty Facebook post can show up too.

But then there is another moment.

The moment after the feeling.

That is where the choice is.

During our conversation, I told Lynne that what she was describing felt like an immediate rebellion against a victim mindset because it forces us to recognize the power we still have. We cannot always control what is happening around us, but we still have some say over what happens next.

There are plenty of things I cannot control. I cannot control what someone else says. I cannot control every decision made in my community. I cannot control what happens in the world, and I certainly cannot control Facebook, although there are days when confiscating everyone’s account until they learn how to behave seems like a reasonable public service.

But helpless is not the same thing as powerless.

I still get to choose my response. I get to choose what receives my attention, what I share, and what I contribute to the spaces I occupy. I get to decide whether I am adding more of the thing I say I do not want or putting my energy toward something else.

And that brought me right back to those two words Lynne caught after the microphones were turned off.

Less heaviness.

More lightness.

I spend a lot of time thinking about what I want less of. Less fear. Less anger. Less division. Less cruelty. Less noise. But when those are the things I keep watching, thinking about, talking about, and reacting to, they still have my attention.

I already know what happens when I stare at the obstacle.

I ride straight into it.

Maybe the better question is not always what I want less of. Maybe it is where I actually want to go.

I want more connection. More curiosity. More kindness. More reasons to believe in the people around me. More moments when someone feels seen instead of judged. More lightness.

The rocks and trees are still going to be there. I’m not pretending otherwise.

I just don’t want to spend the whole ride staring at them.

-Amanda

Amanda McKeen is a Littleton-based writer, business owner, and host of North of Normal, a radio show and podcast exploring the people, places, and ideas that shape life in New Hampshire’s North Country. Catch up on past episodes at clearviewadvantage.com/podcast.