existential dread & me

do you ever feel complexity paralysis when thinking about the state of the world? same.

The first time I had a cosmic anxiety attack, I didn’t think for a second that other, normal people experienced the same kind of feelings. I thought, ‘Emily, what is wrong with you?’

It was incredibly validating to learn that existential dread is quite a common feeling for most human beings. There’s something about having a shared experience with others that brings you back down to earth, no pun intended.

I had this same realization when I explained to my husband my recurring dream of not being able to graduate from college unless I go back and complete elementary school (Billy Madison, is that you??). He said he had those dreams too. While his dream wasn’t the same experience as mine, it showed me that the ‘academic anxiety dream’ is very much a shared experience as well.

Another shared experience that many of us have is our belief systems evolving when we get to college.

I saw a bumper sticker recently that said “teach our children how to think, not what to think.” Many of us are shaped by what our parents or those closest to us believe when growing up, because that’s the only opinions we are subjected to.

In grade school, teachers challenge you to think critically about subjects, but the people who are teaching you ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ are those raising you. I know a lot of my beliefs came from my father’s influence and the people I hung around with as a teenager. Most of whom were much older than I, so I assumed that they knew what they were talking about. (Oh, how wrong I was about that!)

I would assume this is why a lot of us (speaking very generally here) move away for college, get out from under our parents’ wings, make new friends, to then discover that we have an actual brain that can think for itself. We can believe and live by any principles we’d like because we are our own people. (Something we should be very thankful for in the United States.)

A family friend said to me once over a college holiday break, “I don’t understand what happened to you and my daughter. You went to college and all of a sudden you’re liberals.” In reality, we went to college and began thinking for ourselves and that’s where our brains put us.

When this happened — when I really began thinking for myself — the incredibly vast world of information, politics in particular, frightened me. There is so much to know about… everything. You’re allowed to vote in presidential elections, but you lack the knowledge of what it means to be an adult in the United States because you basically just became one. Your parents still claim you on their taxes, so the idea of the IRS is completely foreign. (Speaking for myself here.) So on and so forth.

On top of all of that, there is constantly something new happening in the world every second of every day. Most recently, tariff updates, wars in various countries, the state of the global economy, the state of the US economy, illness outbreaks, big business buyouts, the AI race, microchip production, and even the dang Cracker Barrel logo change!

It’s like there is never enough time in the day… the week… the month, to consume everything there is to know about current affairs.

Add in a love of pop culture, and you’re absolutely screwed.

I find myself asking my husband all the time to explain something to me, as if I were a four-year-old. Somehow, his brain stores more information than I think anyone should ever have, but that’s one of the many reasons why I love and adore him.

I do my best to keep up with the things that mean the most to me when it comes to my family and my work. But, I will say multiple times a week when reading Morning Brew or getting a New York Times email notification, I think to myself, “What on earth are they talking about?”

While I have strong feelings about a handful of things: how people should be treated with respect, no matter how they identify; women do not have adequate rights in this country; misogyny is embedded incredibly deep in our culture, etc., I will never, ever, say that I’m an expert on any of these topics. I may know a little about this, a little about that, but there’s nothing out there I can confidently say I know for certain. I sometimes doubt my own opinion on things just because I feel this information anxiety.

I posted something about the measles vaccine recently and made sure to do some background research before hitting ‘share’ so I was certain I knew what I was talking about. While I didn’t read every research article published, I made sure I had a full grasp on the facts before actively sharing my opinion — one that some may disagree with.

This is important to me because of how much disinformation is spread these days. It’s a very dangerous slippery slope. Talking out of your depth is not cute, so when you feel like you want to share your opinion — which you are most definitely entitled to do — make sure you can back it up with facts.

Roman Emperor and Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius said, “Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.” Something to think about.

Even writing this post, I feel the weight of all the knowledge I do not have bearing down on me.

I try to remind myself to slow down and remember it’s ok to not know everything about everything. If someone asks your opinion on something you don’t feel comfortable speaking on, let them know! “I’m not adequately educated in that subject to answer that question,” is a 100% ok response.

That also doesn’t mean you can’t have intelligent conversations. Maybe your conversations lead you to researching and learning something new, to then pass on to someone else.

I’m not saying I’m an expert in any of this. Really, I struggle with it all the time. I am, however, a person who believes that it is ok to be who you are and nothing more or less. Where you are right now — intellectually, physically, spiritually — is ok. It’s exactly where you need to be. Feeling the feelings of existential dread, academic anxiety, political fatigue, etc., proves that you’re a human here on earth.

The world will always be gigantic, the universe even bigger — but remember that you are one of eight billion humans on this planet experiencing a lot of the same things. Find what makes you happy and go from there.

It’s everyone’s first time living.

with love, em

p.s. this one was some serious word vom