You will never see me at a protest. Aside from my aversion to crowds, mob behavior and rioting, I have strong doubts that protests are effective. During my lifetime, I witnessed protests for the environment, workers’ rights, abortion rights, antiwar, police reform, education reform and other causes. Many of these I agreed with.
I imagine people join protests for many reasons:
- Strong feelings about the cause.
- Being part of a community.
- Feel like they are “doing something”.
- Fun, excitement and socializing.
- Posturing and virtue signalling.
- They don’t know what else to do.
As for me, I have little faith that I can make a systemic change by protesting that will improve my life or the lives of others.
Instead, I focus on what I can control – my behavior, my participation, my interactions with other people, and my decisions.
I can accept the system, opt out of the system or fight the system.
Sometimes I can opt out by refusing to participate. Personal examples of this include not having health insurance and not graduating from college. There are, of course, costs associated with this.
Sometimes I can fight the system. I do this by looking for a work-around or loophole. Often this involves compromise, extra work or forgoing some benefits on my part.
Sometimes, I simply accept it. I do this with taxes, government regulations and politics. I don’t agree with the way many of these systems operate, but consider it “the price I pay” for living in society.
All three of these are much easier ways to live. When I was younger, I railed against injustices. I wasted way too much mental energy and focus on how “unfair” the system was and how I was being screwed over. It gave me headaches and stomach aches and kept me up at night.
I’m glad I learned other ways.
For anyone struggling with this, I recommend reading the book “How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World” by Harry Browne. While I don’t agree with 100% of his ideas, I found a lot I could relate to and apply in my own life.
Maybe you will too.