I'm not sure who needs to hear this right now. Perhaps I do the most. Take a deep breath. Say it with me. "The world's problems are not my problems." One more time. "The world's problems are not my problems." Now before you grab your pitchforks, hear me out. I'm not absolving everyone of all responsibility to doing the right thing. I'm just saying. Breathe. It'll be okay. And if it won't? Well you'll die one day and not have to worry about it anyways.

I think one of the hardest things I've had to go through in the past year is the slow realization of how messed up some of the systems that run our society are. As any young adult begins to transition into their place in the real world its hard not feel completely disenfranchised. I think when people encounter this, they fall into two camps: the 'ah what can you do' attitude or a continuous self-questioning 'why am I not doing more'. I guess this post is meant to address those like me who fell into the second camp. Is there a middle ground to be found here? Maybe we can do the things that we can day-to-day and be proud that we did. There is no right answer here, right?

When you're driving back home from work and the guy in the pick up in front of you at the light flicks his cigarette out the window. When you go for a walk in the woods and see trash everywhere. When the media blasts you with bad news after bad news after bad news to the point of where you grow numb and jaded. It's just another rainforest on fire. It's just another coral reef disappearing. It's just another case of police brutality. Sometimes you want to escape, sometimes you want to run right to middle of it all and try to fix it.

The world is one big giant, inefficient, clunky mess. Millions of years of civilization have brought us to this point. You, the average young 20s adult, are not going to completely transform society. It was f'ed up long before we got here and it'll be f'ed up long after we disappear.

BUT, what you can do, is be a part of the system that does. And look, truthfully, yea we have our problems, but we have our victories too. And we've always had problems! It'd be a boring world without challenges. If we all do the little things, the big things will inevitably happen. That's your minimum responsibility.

If you're asking yourself if you're doing the right thing, pat yourself on the back. Half of all people don't even make it that far in my experience.

I'm not really a religious man at all but I'm big on faith. Things have to work out in the end. Things have to make sense. Because believing that they won't is just far too depressing of a reality to continue to exist in.

So go ahead. Stand up for what you believe in. Protest for the things you believe are right. Donate to the causes you believe will help make the world a better place for your children. Question those very things you believe in! Grab a trash bag and pick up the litter on your walk. Be kind to the people you interact with on a day-to-day basis. Especially those like you, that are also just figuring things out as we go along. And most of all, be kind to yourself. Don't beat yourself up for the problems of society.

Where is your happy medium? Have you had any similar feelings? How did you reconcile them? What made you feel better about the challenges you face? What made it worse?