How’s your nervous system doing? Are you having trouble metabolizing the ominous possibilities of federalized voting, entry level jobs being wiped out by A.I. and the West Antarctic ice sheet sliding into the sea? It’s almost impossible to look away. But watching and waiting for the next terrifying thing to happen — to our screen-addicted kids, our crumbling coastlines, our vulnerable parents — might wear us down to a state of inaction, depleting our energy for making change. I’ve interviewed hundreds of people for my podcast, and there’s one quote from the world-renowned neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett that I come back to over and over: “Vigilance is metabolically expensive.” It will wear you down and make you useless to the cause. So what’s a responsible citizen to do? How do you counterbalance the drain of constantly standing guard? The answer is simple: Seek moments of wonder in your everyday life. Awe inspired by nature, art or the feats of man is justified. Athletics, I write in a Times Opinion guest essay this week, is one place to turn for short, restorative respites, and we’re conveniently right in the middle of the Winter Olympics. Punctuate your outrage and resistance by beholding the beauty of devotion, faith and dogged effort. Let’s be intentional about where we put our attention and make sure that our media diets include wonder.
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