Why You Care So Much About These 5 Things (and How To Stop)

KEYPOINTS

• 01

  Trying to control the uncontrollable drains the energy you need for what matters

  Mel's premise is that we burn mental and emotional energy on things we know we can't control: the friend who's always late, the roommate who never takes out the trash, the partner who snores. She names five common culprits and pairs each with what you can control: the weather, waiting, the headlines, the past and the future.

• 02

  You can't control the weather, but you can control whether it bothers you

  A few days after Mel put the winter coats away, she woke to snow on her emerging daffodils and tulips in southern Vermont. Fretting would change nothing, and she later learned tulips like cold and bloom longer in it. She points to how much worry couples spend on wedding-day weather; once you have a plan A and plan B, you're done. She means normal seasonal weather, not dangerous storms.

• 03

  Bad weather is a chance to practice discipline

  Mel says doing things you don't want to do, like walking in the rain, is linked to growth in the anterior midcingulate cortex, which researchers associate with willpower and even the will to live. She describes it as the only brain region that grows from doing what you don't want to do. Her rule: a passing shower won't kill you, so don't let it kill your plans.

• 04

  You can't control waiting, but you can control what you do with the time

  Gripping the wheel in traffic or fuming in a slow post office line on your lunch break doesn't move anything; it only leaves you exhausted. Mel suggests treating waiting as found time rather than lost time.

• 05

  You can't control the headlines, but you can control your headspace

  Mel admits she used to be passive with media, absorbing whatever the news or her feeds served. She treats attention as your most precious commodity and says giving it away by default is how you waste time and create stress. She cites a recent study estimating Americans watch about 34 hours of TV a week — time that could go to a degree, a side business, healing past trauma, the gym or learning to cook.

• 06

  Passive scrolling and active posting may affect you differently

  Mel cites a UK study in the journal Behaviour & Information Technology finding that people who passively browse others' content were more likely to report anxiety, depression and stress, while those who created and shared their own content saw a positive effect, especially on stress. Rather than making social media the villain, she says, keep the power by choosing how you use it.

• 07

  You can't change the past, but you can change your behavior now

  No amount of regret changes what happened. Learn the lesson, then remember that the best apology to others and the most powerful form of self-forgiveness is changed behavior. Living in a way that makes you proud today proves you're no longer that person. Mel says there are entire decades she regrets, but she's proud of who she is now.

• 08

  You can't control the future, but you create it today

  Mel argues she could predict who you'll be in six months from your current habits, friend group and media diet, so today's actions matter more than any amount of worry. The next six months will arrive either way. Unless you do something different today, the outcome is already set.