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Being Outraged About Everything is Ruining Your Perfectly Good Life
There’s this metaphor that’s making the rounds on the internet. Maybe you’ve heard it:
There are 100 red ants and 100 black ants in a jar. If you leave it alone the ants will do nothing. But shake the jar up and they’ll begin fighting each other. Neither realizes that the other isn’t at fault as they rip each other apart. It’s the person who shook the jar that caused the war.
At this point, most videos or blog posts talk about how the jar-shaker is the real culprit and should be stopped at all costs.
But how dumb would it be for a tiny little ant to attack a human that is an actual million times larger than them?
And yet, our rage makes us so wildly stupid and blind that we think we can and should attack the “big guys” shaking the jar and pitting us against each other when that’s exactly what they want you to do.
Plus, there’s so much more to it than that.
Ants are amazing creatures not because they can attack “the man.” They’re incredible because they focus their efforts where they can make the most difference — in their own colony. They each take on a little bit of the work and together they make a big impact in their little world.
