I have written a great deal about the narrative multiverse we’re in and even though we can still encounter compelling stories and moments of pure joy and inspiration (thank you, Minnesotans and Bad Bunny!), our daily lives are still peppered with a lot of rage-baiting headlines and bullshit takes. And I have long believed that our current state of public discourse, despite the occasional bright spots, can have the effect of making the naturally-occurring hard things in our lives – like loss, illness, relationship ruptures – even harder.
I don’t know how many times I’ve had to tell my mother, who is 87 years old, that the world she once knew – where she had total faith in Walter Cronkite and Peter Jennings and the like to deliver her accurate, trustworthy news – is now gone. Once-storied news outlets like the Washington Post are losing credibility because, well, it looks fishy to have your owner pour millions into an empty-air vanity film on Melania while at the same time eliminating hundreds of journalism jobs. So what’s a person to do, with respect to staying informed and more importantly, staying sane?
When I was in the middle of my career, I developed and embraced what I came to know as my Five People rule, which was basically: if something bizarre or frustrating or terrible happened to me at work, I processed it (with the expectation of confidentiality, of course) in conversations with five people I respected and liked. In this way, I could reassure myself that a) I wasn’t crazy in thinking that the behavior that caused the Bad Thing was unacceptable or abnormal; and b) I could also get the benefit of different people’s perspectives on how to feel about it.
Note the word “feel” in that last sentence, there. My Five People thing was not really about telling me what to do about a particular situation, because most challenging situations don’t immediately yield a clear and correct-seeming next step, let alone a solution. You can’t say, for example, of a difficult colleague: “I just need him/her to be fired!” because that’s simply not how organizations and employment policies and laws work.
My Five People, at that particular job, were so wise and kind. They were sympathetic but they also did not let me over-dramatize or exaggerate my feelings. They often made me laugh, which had a amazing defusing effect on my feelings. Once you can laugh about something, it really doesn’t seem so terrible.
I often think that I am particularly self-aware and in touch with my feelings but in truth, I have benefited so much from others in being able to process my feelings in a way that they don’t disproportionately ruin my well-being or anyone else’s too, for that matter. I have copped to the fact that in previous jobs, when I was at the executive or senior leadership level, I made the mistake of oversharing my feelings and while I know this made me appear more human to others, it also passed on my feelings to my colleagues and direct reports in ways that I knew was just not that helpful to them. This is what I keep on thinking when I see people spew so much anger and frustration about the current administration online – yes, of course it’s valid but it also has the effect of creating just a big bolus of anger and despair that gets endlessly replayed and looped online.
(Also, I keep on thinking of that funny thing they teach in leadership/management trainings, which can be summed up as, “Feelings are messengers!” This maxim is supposed to help you get more in touch with your feelings and acknowledge what your feelings are trying to tell you because otherwise, you’re going to repress or ignore them and they will leak out anyway, in unhelpful ways. These days, I want to say to my feelings-as-messengers: NOT AT HOME. Or: WHY AM I GETTING SO MANY TERRIBLE MESSENGERS?)
I realized the other day that I have, in essence, developed a Five People rule when it comes to consuming the latest news of the days. These are content creators and independent journalists who I trust not only to offer me well-informed facts and updates about the horror and depravity of the current administration but in doing so, they also give me guidance in how to feel about these things. There is just so much bad stuff, and so much fake stuff, it is hard to get any type of bead on any one situation, it’s like looking at a river of shit and trying to find a way to cross to the other side. These individuals are doing absolutely heroic work in helping us navigate these crossings.
It does strike me as funny, how years and years ago, when the internet first became A Thing, we were warned about the dangers of hunkering down in our little filter bubbles (back then, the worry was that over-exposure to like-minded individuals ran the risk of creating too much groupthink and not enough diversity of thought and expression). Nowadays, I tell you, we need filters to just plain survive! My Five People are the absolutely essential filters through which I can both understand what is happening these days, as much as I wish I didn’t need to, while also finding moments of hope and conviction that this, too, shall pass.
Here are the Five People keeping me sane for the past few years and ESPECIALLY since TrumpShit 2.0:
Heather Cox Richardson: a political science professor and Substacker, she is the goddess who puts out a daily version of “Letters from an American” that explain current events in the context of history and political science. I like how lately, she is letting people know whether her letters are okay to read before bed, because she knows perfectly well how the latest headlines can interrupt many a night’s sleep. (I follow her on Facebook and subscribe to her Substack)
Amanda Nelson: a content creator with a background in history and political science and also the snarkiest of the snarkers, she puts out a twice-weekly series called “Trump’s L’s for the week” that makes one appreciate the full extent of the incompetence and unforced errors of the Trump Administration. She also offers pragmatic tips about how to manage one’s political anxiety and while she acknowledges that people have been and will continue to be grievously harmed by this administration, she also calls attention to the growing movement to fight back against Trump and the Republicans. (I follow her on TikTok and Insta and subscribe to her Substack)
Therapy Jeff: a licensed therapist who gives clinical explanations (in plain English) for why we’re feeling the way we’re feeling when yet another fresh horror from Trump is revealed. I find these so soothing. (I follow him on Insta)
Jon Stewart’s Monday appearances on the Daily Show: There is no one better at walking the line between comedy and unfeigned, genuine outrage. I understood why he left the Daily Show and I think having him back on Mondays feels just right. (I catch the full segment on YouTube and clips on TikTok)
Josh Marshall, Talking Points Memo: Josh Marshall is one of the few people who I would argue is less of a content creator and more of an actual journalist. He gave an extremely good overview of how Bezos fumbled his ownership of the Washington Post – way to destroy a legacy there! – and he also talks about topics that I’ve glimpsed out of the side-view mirror but haven’t had time to think about because, well, life. (I subscribe to bulletins from his website.)
Those are my Five People at the moment and I know you have yours, too – like Jeff Tiedrich (he’s too shouty and profane for me, but he works well for others) and Oh That’s Rich (he got it absolutely wrong with the “girls are fighting” thing from AOC and to his credit, he admitted he got it wrong, but I’ve never quite bought into his thing the same since then).
And even when the river of shit gets too overwhelming for even my Five People to help me see a way through, there’s always dog videos. And cats, and horses, and raccoons, and otters…
Minna Jung Consulting 