It was a little past midnight on Wednesday and I was sitting in the bathtub. It was the 9th of November, and I was feeling terrible. I had no idea who the Prime Minister of Romania, the country where I grew up, was. I had no idea which party was in power in the UK, where I had been living for the past year and a half. But I had just spent 12 months following the ups and downs of of the 2016 US elections, a country that I couldn’t vote in, had no real way of living in in the short and medium-term, and hadn’t even visited. A 5 point swing in the betting odds (on average more accurate than polls) could make me feel happy, sad, angry, afraid or confident. Something was very, very wrong.   Outside of this, my general political ignorance was carefully cultivated. I had increasingly been focusing on the actionable, on what I can do in my own life, where I had the most control. You see, I knew that… Voting Doesn’t Matter If you are an anarcho-capitalist, you’ve (not) convinced many, many people of this basic tenet. It’s old news. It’s passé. It’s the uncool half-brother of “Taxation is theft”. There are some cool arguments for this. I don’t think you should check them out though, and I’ll tell you why in a second. Back to 2016: The belief didn’t save me though, nor did it save many others from getting caught in the hype. This is more popular outside of election years to begin with, and 2016 seems to have been a particularly bad one too. I should’ve focused instead on… Political Action Doesn’t Matter As in getting involved in politics is a waste of time. This one is a little bit more niche, a little bit more contentious. It’s the closet of the libertarian house, or the attic. It’s where you retire to when you have had enough of the party downstairs, and want quietly scroll the Facebook feed on your phone. I knew this one too. I had no intention of going to protests, writing to my local politician or donating to her. I cared little of party politics (I did furtively check the election results of a few libertarian parties in some countries) And yet this perspective gave me no protection from the non-actionable, because… I Was Still Up To The Neck In It I’ve been using a light tone so far, but I don’t want to trivialize this: I really, really wanted the government the go away. I was angry about money being collected at (an implicit) gunpoint. I felt sad about the waste of resources and of human lives in war, in the countless failed projects and initiatives. I was stunned at how many programs that were supposed to do good had had the opposite effect. I still feel these emotions. Though I was apolitical in some ways, politics still very much pervaded my thoughts, my conversations and my decisions. My learning, however, was chipping away at my enthusiasm. Stoicism made me focus more on what was and wasn’t within my sphere of control. Nonviolent Communication helped me connect with people of different views, and I suddenly could see the evil enemy no more. And Then It Clicked In the bath tub that night I realized how much the past 12 months sucked. I had ran around in circles and achieved nothing. I’ve missed great opportunities to connect with, be taught and teach with all the people I’ve talked politics with. I’ve alienated those who had different views and built a false sense of belonging with those who had the same. I’ve wasted their time. I’ve wasted my time.  I hadn’t released a Valiant Growth episode in three months and yet my concern was what some guy on a different continent thought about the value of political action. (My lull of productivity wasn’t because of this, but I sure could’ve used that focus and emotional awareness to see what was going on instead!) I had no plan of action of moving on from my job, something which I really w