At my son’s football game today I found myself getting a little worked up.  The refs had made a call that displeased the other team, and the families across the field in the home stands were livid. The sound of “those people” booing and carrying on made my stomach churn.  My heart started beating faster and for a moment I felt genuine rage.  I wanted to yell and tell them to go straight to heck and get bent.  “Go eat a bad hot dog from your sorry concession stand, assholes!  Who the fuck sells Twizzlers instead of Red Vines?”  So there!

I stopped before I could get ejected or at least make a minor fool of myself in front of a bunch of kids.  I remembered that this was the kids’ game, not mine, and that the stakes on the outcome of the call, the game, the season were so very tame.  No one was going to die over this, and it wasn’t really my battle to fight.  There is no “mom” in “team”.  (Unless you call yourself a “team mom”, but that is just a sexist and outdated term so please just stop.)

It wasn’t actually me out on the field taking hits.  My ass was safely planted in the bleachers, somehow taking it all personally.  I do this kind of stuff all the time like a typical human, feeling the “we-ness” of situations that I am not directly involved in.

In Yuval Noah Harari’s book Sapiens he explains how humans do this, where we see ourselves as connected with others in idea, not only in practice, and that’s part of how we are able to organize as one with large groups, even if we’ve never met.  We are animals of ideological habit.  It has helped us survive and take over the world (for better or worse).

Then we create us-and-them situations, like those in a sporting competition, to define who we are by what groups we identify with, as well as those we don’t.  We must belong somewhere!  We must defend our somewheres and our somebodies!  Oh, and we shouldn’t probably fraternize or sympathize with the otherbodies.

The problem with these ideological memberships is that we feel so connected or repulsed that we let things stress us out, no matter the true impact on our lives.  In addition to being a sideline schmuck, you may have also gotten upset about:

1. Someone being voted off or killed off a tv show
2. The romantic problems, political views, or evening wear of celebrities
3. The everyday mundanely controversial social media comments of friends of friends
4. The death, crime, war, and abominations in countries that are worlds away from your home that you have never and will never visit
5. The depressing mess on the evening news, featuring dramas and people who you don’t actually know and will never meet

I am not going to advocate for the abject ignorance of horrors affecting people we don’t know, but I do think that healthy living requires a stress budget.  So how much can we devote to things outside our reach of influence?

Most of my life I have tried to keep unnecessary we-ness from invading all of my conscious thoughts.  I don’t really watch the evening news.  (Unless I’m just trying to find eye candy: I’m talking to YOU, Lester Holt! And when I say “eye candy” I mean his glasses, obviously, since they are delicious.)  I don’t have a personal Facebook account, and I try to invest my emotions into people and causes I know and love.  But I do have these moments where I can’t help but get caught up in the Right-Fight.

There are signs that your we-ness may be misguided or could be getting in the way of your happiness:

1. Spending time impulsively checking notifications or browsing your newsfeed instead of interacting with people you love or doing things that actually matter to you. You fear you won’t “know what’s going on.”
2. Complaining on a daily basis about the affairs of politics at home or abroad but don’t actually vote or put time or money toward causes you care about.
3. You know the roster for your favorite team but can’t name your child’s teacher. Or, you have the channel numbers memorized for the networks you watch but not your Mom’s birthday.
4. There isn’t time to exercise or cook your own meals but you somehow find time to stream videos and post pictures of restaurant food.
5. You know details about the president of Russia, or the leader of North Korea, but don’t know much about your town’s mayor, if you remember their name at all.

The solution to a misappropriated we-ness is not that hard to figure out. You just have to make real connections the point of your life and put yourself out there to actually take the hits on the field.  Give your attention to the real world in front of you and the people you know best. Get out of the safety net of virtual or remote drama and take on real challenges.

Taking the weight of the world on your shoulders is unnecessary, especially if that weight is made up of things you really can’t change or control.  Stress for the sake of stress is our way of avoiding real risks, but that just keeps us disconnected and wastes our energy and talents.

To sit in the stands and watch with an angry face is simply not enough.  I need to use my we-ness to change the world!   Or at least to focus on cheering my team on toward victory.

*I found out what a wenis was by actually spending time with my tween son instead of scrolling on my phone.  Now I am self-conscious about my sagging wenis, so maybe it has backfired.