It’s hard to change anything if you’re constantly outraged

“You can’t set yourself on fire to keep other people warm.”

I recognize—and deeply appreciate—that in these tumultuous times, many of you want to make change, to be part of the solution.

But if you’re doing this while locked in a state of constant stress, anxiety, and outrage, you’re likely to burn yourself out.

I see a lot of this behavior on social media, that perpetual umbrage machine. The journalist and podcaster Sam Sanders refers to online outrage as “performative internetting.”

It’s great to get involved and speak out, he argues, but you also need to laugh once in a while; joy and play are not trivial endeavors.

He has a great phrase that you can use as a reminder in this regard:

“You can’t set yourself on fire to keep other people warm.”

Sam came on my podcast today to talk about a bunch of key lessons he learned during what he calls a “Job year” (as in the Book of Job), during which he lost his mother, his boyfriend, and a job.

While I have you…

Tomorrow (Thursday, December 12th) at 3:30pm ET, I’m doing a live guided meditation + Q&A for paid subscribers via the Substack app. I’d love to get some questions ahead of time, so hit me up in the chat today.

Below, paid subscribers get a cheatsheet of today’s podcast, which includes key takeaways, time-stamped highlights, and a full transcript. Paid subscribers can also comment on posts, join the chat, participate in monthly live AMAs, and more.