The suffering is all engulfing and we individually are powerless to change the tide. We're small in the face of suffering. I won't try to deny that this is true!

But something (I think I heard from Ian Coldwater) that really resonated with me is something like this:

"You can't fight in every fight, but you have to be in a fight.

This is an optimistic statement, but it's also correct!

It gives me permission to focus on one thing, to catch myself before a rabbithole. It makes it pragmatic to have the "serenity to accept the things I cannot totally fix in the next 10 minutes".

Frankly, it helps me actually do things, which is good. Even if that's a $5 donation to UNRWA or whatever. You can do small things, and you can quantify them not against the goal of "Fix Every Problem", but against the goal of "Fix One Person's Problem". Thinking at the scale of person rather than humanity really helps.

And, if we're going to live in the timeline that ends up OK, we need to be optimistic, even if the pessimistic outcome is more likely.

If we end up in the "humanity turns rancid (fascist) and kills the globe" timeline... Well, at least you can make the death a bit more painless. That is good too.

That said, this is a lot of rationalizing and untangling a feeling.

The other half is exercise. I hate that the "eat healthy, exercise, and buy my nutritional supplement" people are mostly right, but exercise (specifically cardio) is really really important too. It's a direct lever on your brain. By exercising, you divert excess energy from the Anxiety Nodule and to all your other organs instead. I spent years going around therapists and it's criminal that not a single one of them told me to start jogging.

Sorry this is all over the place, but I feel so much about this.

tldr: You can't be in every fight, but you have to be in a fight. And you have to take care of yourself.