Areas of Influence
Where I'm choosing to show up when the world feels broken
Sunday was noisy.
Not the good kind of noisy. Not the laughter, music, or kitchen chaos. Not the sounds of conversation over good food or even Luna barking as she chases a kid on the tree swing.
This was the kind that fills your head until you can’t think your own thoughts. Where you don’t realize how shallow you’re breathing. Where you miss the things people say around you. Where you stare off just to cope.
The kind of noise that doesn’t stop because it’s in your hand. In your feed. In your bloodstream.
Everything online felt jagged: another mass shooting, this time tied to my extended family. Posts dragging a man I knew personally as kind and devout, however complex his legacy might be. And of rouces, the endless spiral of political and cultural implosion.
I couldn’t keep scrolling.
🛶 Entangled
During our recent river trip, one of the river guides talked about the real danger in whitewater: not the current, not even the rocks, but entanglement.
“If you fall in,” she warned us, “whatever you do, don’t put your feet down! You might get stuck in something below the surface. If that happens, it’s the hardest rescue there is.”
If I kept scrolling last Sunday, it wasn’t just that I would be swept away.
I’d get stuck. Entangled. Pulled under by headlines, anger, and helplessness. I wouldn’t be able to figuratively come back up for air.
So I did something radical (by today’s standards): I stopped.
No Instagram.
No Facebook.
Just a library book.
📕 “Online violence is real-world violence.”
The library book I picked up was from my hold list: How to Stand Up to a Dictator by Nobel Peace Prize-winning journalist Maria Ressa — a woman who’s been relentlessly targeted for reporting on corruption in the Philippines.
You might not think that turning to this book would be the respite from social media I needed, but Ressa has such a strong voice. And learning about her life has been an endearing experience. Empathy comes through reading books. Not scrolling on my phone.
As I read, I pulled out my phone to take notes, saving quotes that stopped me in my reading.
Online violence is real-world violence. This has been proven by so much research and so many tragic events around the world. I am targeted online every day, along with thousands of other journalists, activits, opposition leaders, and unsuspecting citizens here and around the globe.
You can’t separate your digital life from your real one. That would be an illusion. Because what we ingest, how we interact, what we say (or don’t say) — it shapes us. The accounts I follow tell a story. The likes I tap send a signal. The algorithm doesn’t care about my intentions. It feeds off behavior.
Deep in notes app, I scribbled this down years ago, and it still hits home:
“Regardless of your original intention, you will become what you surround yourself with.”
So what’s around me right now? (What’s around you right now?)
💡 Sticky notes and self-inventory
I have sticky notes EVERYWHERE. (I have a problem. I’m terrible at hiding my internal chaos.) These are some of the things they cover:
Quotes from President Nelson about “behavior that is ennobling.”
The correct way to format dates for our content. (always the editor)
My 2025 theme: malicious joy.
A term I wanted to remember: body doubling. (because ADHD solidarity)
Soccer divisions for my kids.
IP addresses reserved for documentation use.
A note about the Fidelity savings accounts I’ve set up.
The paid holidays I have each year.
And this reminder: “effective resistance versus self-defeating outrage.”
What does this tell you? I would guess it says that I’m a person trying to hold a lot. I want to be principled. I want to pay the bills. I want to resist despair. I want my kids to know I’m paying attention.
💬 The Cost of Connection
I knew stepping away from social media would cost me something. I would miss the connection. I had to give that up, too.
Group chats.
Friend updates.
That “just checking in” moment when someone sees your story or I reply to theirs.
That flicker of belonging.
I’ll say it again: you can’t separate your digital life from your real one. That goes for the good stuff, too. Those digital handshakes carry a real connection.
I was looking forward to that when I returned to the platforms today. I was surprised, though. When I logged back in… it wasn’t exciting. It didn’t fill my cup. It may have even left me feeling emptier. (Or thirstier to stick with the metaphor.)
What does that say?
Does that mean it’s the start of a shift?
Maybe I don’t owe the algorithm my presence.
🧘♀️ Chongsoy and a window full of light
Ressa’s words stayed with me as I looked out the window this morning:
…when I wake up and look out the window, I am energized, I have hope. I see the possibilities — how, despite the darkness, this is also a time when we can rebuild our socieites, starting with what’s right in front of us; our areas of influence.
She’s been surveilled, arrested, and maligned, and still, she chooses joy. That’s chongsoy, the belief that misfortune can be washed away with joy.
Chongsoy: joy as a cleansing force.
Ressa sees the world not through a feed, but through a frame. Her window holds real light, real breath, and real trees.
As I sit at my computer typing this, my back is to my window. I don’t even look out on a regular basis. But this morning, I couldn’t look away because the clouds with the sunrise were so breathtaking, I made my kids come look. We had a moment of presence in the golden-orange light.
That’s what influence really is: inviting someone to turn toward beauty.
✨ A Problem Clearly Named Is Half the Solution
It was clear to me on Sunday that I had a problem. So I named it: distraction, distortion, and disconnection.
Then, I named the shift I needed to make: connection with intention.
If you can’t lift yourself up, you can’t lift anyone else.
I don’t want to perform empathy through Instagram story reactions. I want to feel it in my bones. I don’t want to post just to stay visible. I want to be present enough to see what matters.
Maybe I’ll start checking Instagram only on weekends. Maybe I’ll go dark again when the noise rises. But I know this: I want to trade my digital hours for real joy, real limits, and real influence.
That starts with what’s right in front of me.
The feed will always ask for more.
But the window never asks.
It just waits to be noticed.