Your Addiction to Outrage is Ruining Your Life

The biggest problem with outrage, however, is that it has been weaponised. Outrage sells like crazy, because it’s a strong emotion and strong emotions force people into action. That’s why political parties, instead of coming together to find solutions, whip their supporters into a frenzy of anger against the other side. Corporations are now getting in on the action too. They weaponise your outrage to sell their products, such as Gillette with their ill fated ad campaign and Nike using Colin Kaepernick to bring socially conscious consumers to their brand.

The mainstream media is by far the worst culprit, however, because without your attention they don’t have a business model. They have to make you keep clicking and tuning in, otherwise their advertising dollars dry up. That’s why everything is increasingly sensationalised and it’s no longer about reporting facts. A headline that makes you emotional causes you to click. The article gets you pissed off, which sends you to the comments section to argue with people. The topic trends on social media, which you’re of course taking part in.

How is it working out for you?

Has constantly reading, liking, retweeting and commenting your outrage made your life any better? What’s it actually doing for you? Has it helped you earn more at work? Be better with your family? Made you more fulfilled? Has it accomplished anything for you whatsoever?

Spending all your time getting angry about things isn’t going to make you calm and peaceful, it’s just going to result in more anger

In other words, the world might not be improving fast enough for you, but it’s improving every day. So here’s a free piece of advice: get off the screen, go outside and spend some time in the sun. Spend some time with friends and talk about things that make you happy. Hell, go and do some things that make you happy. You’ve got to balance things out. It’s a far more satisfying existence than spending all your time staring at a screen, fighting with people and getting worked up over problems that are probably far less urgent than they seem on social media.