I'm Emily P. Freeman and welcome to The Next Right Thing. You're listening to Episode 289.

This is a listener-supported podcast about making decisions, but also about making a life.

Subscribers to the Soul Minimalist on Substack make it possible for me to continue to host the Next Right Thing ad-free.

You can learn more and subscribe at Emily pfremon.substack.com, where we'll continue the conversation

for anyone who wants to move beyond the pro-con list.

If you struggle with decision fatigue, chronic hesitation, or if you just need a few minutes

away from the constant stream of information, and the sometimes delightful but also distracting hum of entertainment, you're in the right place for discerning your next right thing.

Well, today's episode is about that constant stream of information.

If we're going to be on the internet, because we are, how can we stay sane

and remain sole minimalist in the midst of all this information? Listen in.

Our brains were not made for what the Internet has become.

Within the same minute, I'll get a message from someone telling me how much one of my books has meant to them.

And another one in the same minute that reads, and I quote,

Emily, I'm trying to be kind.

Your glasses are great, but you have a

tiny face and I'm afraid they're too big and distracting, just trying to help. From unsolicited

advice to kind support, from anger to tearful gratitude. The potential for emotional whiplash

is high. This we know full well. And that's just the personal

messages. I don't need to explain to you our strange, now normalized reality of watching a

funny cat video and then immediately after that, literal war footage to a thoughtful post about

grief, to a beautifully curated kitchen,

to a headline with terrible breaking news.

...