My friend complained to me today about how all we talk about now is depressing stuff. Look. Here's the deal.

Anyone with any sense has had most of the expected nice stuff to talk about taken away. Family gatherings. Classrooms. Vacations. Concerts.

We have an internet browser.

This is a hard thing to remember, because we are the kind of people who have always defaulted to a keyboard or a smartphone.

Remember that the positive things that gave your brain a break are not there anymore. You are replacing them with intentionally manipulative social feeds.

When you start spiraling about negative things happening in the world, accept that things are truly abnormal and bad. However, you have unconsciously lost the things that used to give your psyche a break from processing and dwelling on them.

You're no good to anybody a wreck.

It is patently absurd to let vile, money-grubbing, billionaire-feeding social media companies destroy you because people outside your control have taken away your coping mechanisms and counterbalances during a woefully mismanaged global pandemic.

Your parents always told you to set the phone down and come to dinner for a reason.

You thought corporate and foreign state interference was bad in 2016? Now there is an absolutely captive and emotionally invested audience with no mental escape. Don't let them ruin you.