“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
 

ost of our fights are with imaginary people in our heads – like a coworker, a parent, or a partner.
Most of our fights are with overwhelming issues in the world – like climate change, animal rights, or politics.
Most of our fights we have are with an inner emotion – like sadness over a death, anxiety about the future, or anger at the government.

Suffering seems like the responsible, if not socially acceptable, thing to do. Our suffering somehow equals caring.

“I need to watch the news and rant about what this politician is doing. Otherwise, I’d become out-of-touch and apathetic.”

But I’d like to remind you that none of your inner debates will mend a relationship, save the planet, change the government, or bring back a loved one. For this reason, I always discourage any mental branching that debilitates you.

Instead, I’d like to invite you to make an agreement with yourself that goes something like this: If you will not make even the smallest effort to change what you want to be different, then you will allow it no mental bandwidth whatsoever. Because what good is it doing in your mind if you have no intention of doing anything with it?

I know this sounds like I’m encouraging apathy, but I’m not. I actually want you to do something about it. I want you to stop doing what is useless and start doing what is useful.

Here’s an example: A woman I knew suffered over the thought of dogs being treated inhumanely in the world. From the moment her eyes opened in the morning until she drifted off to sleep, her mind would be tortured by the images she’d seen in literature she was reading. Whenever she’d focus on doing something for herself like meditate, she’d become distracted by those images arising in her mind, throw up her hands and say, “What’s the point of doing something like meditate for myself when there’s so much suffering in the world?!”

I asked her if she could see how the voices in her head were weakening her through their persistence. I asked her if she loved the dogs. Of course, she replied, “Yes, absolutely!”

“Good,” I said, “Then you need to save your energy to focus on doing good for those dogs. They need you to be in the highest spirits possible so you can make the biggest impact possible. You need to take that love for them, turn it toward you, so you can keep turning it back toward them.”

I then found out that she wasn’t involved in any advocacy for those dogs. She was just hounded by the mere thought of what was happening in the world.

That’s when I introduced her to my agreement. I said to her, “Your project, should you choose to accept it, is to find a dog you could make a difference for. Yes, that’s right, just A dog. ONE dog.”

I told her it was unfair for the voices to keep her stuck in this miserable situation where the dogs were suffering, and so was she. She needed some light of love, and at least one dog needed some light of love too.

That would certainly be a good start.