10 Things to Stop Worrying About Today

Team politics is exhausting. Don't get mad about what the governor or the senator or the vice president or the whoever did or didn't do. Understand the implications of any major moves that trickle down to your reality, and play the game so you're always ahead. Vote if you want, run for local office if you can make a real difference in your neighbors' lives. Don't blow a gasket on Twitter over presidential politics. Not a good game to play.

You're going to pay them. If you don't pay them, you will get in trouble. If you hire someone to help you legally set yourself up so you're paying the least reasonable amount of tax possible, you win the tax game. Don't worry about taxes. Pay what you must, and work to earn more next year.

I find it fascinating how much people will brainwash themselves into a bad day because when they were a little kid someone told them rainy days were "bad" days and now they say that when it's raining in the morning and they're already set up to fail and be miserable.

It's raining? Still a beautiful day. Say it out loud. Ok, you got a little wet. Did that ruin the whole thing? No. Ok, so don't brainwash yourself the second you get up into ruining your day because of the weather.

They don't care about you. They're people who have made some borderline psychotic sacrifices or are so well connected that they couldn't NOT be a celebrity. They are sometimes regular people who other people put on a pedestal to make themselves feel more important and "connected". There is nothing a celebrity does that you should think has any influence over your life in a meaningful way. Be fascinated, be entertained. Don't worry about their pet concerns or initiatives or feuds or whatever. Not your game.

I don't need to tell you that it's going to happen. There were periods of my life where I spent my whole day worrying about death and not thinking of all the other great things I had right in front of me. Never again. Even when I'm dying. It's just a thing I have to do. In fact, I'd be jealous if literally everybody else got to die and I never got to do it, too. That's not fair! I want to play!

Because you will lose at stuff. You'll lose at competitions. You'll lose friends. You'll lose people you love to Point Number 5 above. It will happen. Your job is to be happy you had any of it to begin with. Epictetus says in the Enchiridion:

Never say of anything, "I have lost it"; but, "I have returned it."

Because you have to work to win at things and that is hard and deliberate but winning is not everything because you can't win everything all the time. It's a state of mind and a waypoint on your way to the next waypoint. No more, no less. If you only worry about winning, you're actually just a loser for every second you haven't won - and those seconds are fleeting and rare. Focus on the game itself.

I don't mean don't pay attention to them. Pay attention to them. But detach yourself from the reality of the way markets operate. You don't invest your soul, you invest your capital. And everybody knows money isn't real anyway, so what is there to worry about? Keep your energy flowing into the game you're in every second of every day. Not the one that's open from 9:30am-4:30pm Mon-Fri except federal holidays.

You worry about war when war is at your doorstep. When you're a civilian caught in the crossfire, you find a way to remove yourself from that scenario. You don't worry about a crooked conflict between two factions that have nothing to do with you and have no way of harming you directly. You pray or think or affirm that the innocents are able to evade undue harm and help if you can (and if you're certain the help you give won't be stolen or misappropriated by one of the crooked commanders), and you let the evil crooked people kill each other. War isn't a game you will ever likely have to play. Don't spectate when it kicks off somewhere else.

Hear me out. I'm a huge sports fan. I have my favorite teams and fighters and I play fantasy sports yearly around football season. I used to get emotionally damaged over the performance of "my" teams or "our" season.

You know what would happen if I were on the team?

We wouldn't be losing like losers.

But, I'm not, and they don't work for me or owe me anything, so I can't feel anything resembling emotions about their performance. It's not a reflection of who I am. It's a reflection of their performance and nothing more. Don't wear the jersey. Don't cry when they lose the championship. Enjoy the spectacle, cheer the wins, talk the talk with your friends and colleagues, and more than anything appreciate the level of mastery at play in the game.