[AKN #78] Want To Stop Feeling Exhausted? Avoid Debbie Downers
LAUGH: Seriously, Stop What You Are Doing And Watch The Debbie Downer Skit Right Now, LOVE: Correcting People In Public Makes Them Double Down
Sup homies?
Greetings from my home in San Francisco.
I’d like to begin with a moment of silence.
Last week, we lost the World's Oldest Man. Yep, it happened right after they confirmed he was 112 (!) years old.
We’re constantly losing the World’s Oldest Man right after confirming his age…which isn’t going to change until we come up with a better age verification method than cutting them open to count the rings.
But seriously gang, would it surprise you if that was the way we determined how old really old people were?
Rhetorical question. Of course it wouldn’t. Because the world is chock full o’ batshit crazy people who increasingly have less and less respect for old stuff.
Nothing is safe or sacred anymore.
Not even company branding — the paragon of stability in a Capitalist society.
Take Coke. Coke is giving its cans a makeover!
Apparently updates to the packages are designed to draw people's attention to how quickly they can get diabetes.
Or what about the hit our culture took when this historic Wonder Bread factory in Hoboken was turned into a luxury building?
This beautification of New Jersey (oxymoron alert!) was done to honor the two most cherished beliefs of millennials:
We HATE gluten
We think gentrification is the best thing since sliced bread
But it’s not just soda and bread enthusiasts…everywhere you look people are disrespecting pieces of history.
Like this man stole an $8,000 Gibson Custom '59 guitar by cramming it down his pants.
What a lunatic! That is NOT how you play the guitar. Like I've heard of blue balls, but I’ve NEVER heard of playing the Blues with your balls...
Another day, another nihilist wrecking ball disrespecting the old.
It’s always out with the old and in with the new for these people because once the old is out, they are the only thing left.
They seek to destroy not because they want something better, but because they are a wrecking ball and wrecking balls exist to demolish.
But not everyone’s a wrecking ball.
Some people despite being crazy have respect for history and want to help restore it.
Like this week, Pete Davidson and Colin Jost bought an old, non-functioning, Staten Island ferry boat for $280,000 to turn it into a nightclub.
A shocking price tag for a boat that can’t even move, but it makes sense when you realize trash from Staten Island is like Champagne from the Champagne region of France: authentic.
But seriously, this was a very cool gesture by some positive people trying to keep a piece of history alive. Love to see it.
What a nice little reminder that not everyone is a nihilist wrecking ball using their powers to tear shit down and exude their negative energy on to you. Some people are actually power plants of positivity!
The secret to life is really surrounding yourself with less of the former and more of the latter.
Which brings me to today's topic...
On to the newsletter!
LIVE: Want To Stop Feeling Exhausted? Avoid Debbie Downers
In an iconic and recurring SNL skit, Rachel Dratch plays Debbie Downer, a woman who makes negative comments at all times. Debbie constantly finds new and creative ways to completely deflate the energy out of the room.
For example, in the video below, Debbie has a brief exchange with Jimmy Fallon that goes like this:
JIMMY FALLON: I love me some steak and eggs!
DEBBIE DOWNER: Ever since they found Mad Cow Disease in the US, I’m not taking any chances. It can live in your body for years before it ravages your brain.
I love this skit so much because it is hilarious and I can relate to how EXHAUSTING it is to be around these types of negative people.
Minor exposure to negative people can leave me physically drained of energy and left in this awkward position where I’m standing there continuing a terrible conversation out of social obligation.
We all know these people.
Every interaction with them is a chore where you end up feeling like Eli in “There Will Be Blood”, drained and beaten down.
We feel this because negative emotions are inefficient.
Or in the words of the authors of “The Power Of Full Engagement”
Much like a gas-guzzling car, [negative emotions] draw down our energy stores at a rapid rate.
So if you’re ever feeling particularly drained on a day where you got a good night’s rest, ask yourself: “who did I interact with today?”
If the answer is “lots of negative Nancys and Debbie Downers”, consider that you might be exhausted because you hang out with too many people who suck.
How To Not Deplete Your Emotional Energy
Negative people drain your emotional energy. It’s that simple.
So to avoid prematurely draining your energy and feeling terrible, you need to eliminate negative people from your life.
How do you do this?
Well. If you find someone in your life who always makes you feel worse after talking to them…STOP TALKING TO THEM.
Seriously, if you’re reading this, you’re either an adult or a gifted child in some weird after school program that makes you read my newsletter. Either way, you possess the ability RIGHT NOW to just stop talking to whatever negative person is around you AT ANY TIME YOU WANT.
Boom. Problem solved.
Enjoy your newfound supply of energy.
Energy you could use to find and/or interact with positive people you really care about.
Become amazed as you find yourself WAY more energized by these human power plants who replenish your energy stores rather than withdraw from them.
BEGIN RANT
Listen…I know this all sounds kind of glib.
Like if I were you and I just read something saying “hang out with positive people”, I would be nodding along like “yea, yea, sure, whatever, hopefully he has another one of those dank Kazakhstan links in the LOVE section today.”
But let me stop you there. I really think everyone should take this advice seriously.
Especially now. Like whether or not you’ve been affected directly by COVID the virus, it is a certainty that you’ve been affected by the cultural impact of COVID and the lockdowns.
You probably have friends who went from huge sources of positive energy to huge sources of negative energy. You now find being around them to be exhausting.
They don’t have fun anymore. They only talk about climate change, politics, and how good “Don’t Look Up” was. Kill me.
You keep holding out hope that they will return back to their fun loving selves, but it keeps getting harder and harder to show up and talk to them day after day.
Here is just a friendly reminder that you have no obligation to be around someone who is loudly working out their own internal personal conflict and constantly draining your energy.
Being around negative people is a significant risk to your emotional well being.
So yea. There is absolutely no obligation to keep talking to them.
Stop telling yourself otherwise.
END RANT
How about you? What's your experience with Debbie Downers?
Just hit reply to this email and tell me about it.
Have you ever cut someone out of your life and felt immediately better?
Did you ever let a friendship carry on WAY too long thinking “this will get better” until you finally couldn’t take it anymore?
Send me an email about it.
I read every one and can guarantee at minimum 1 hand crafted artisanal reply.
However, if we get into a 7 email back and forth, please be advised I’m certainly going to get overwhelmed and ghost the 8th reply. That is just who I am.
LAUGH: Seriously, Stop What You Are Doing And Watch The Debbie Downer Skit Right Now
This skit is so good it deserves the double feature in today’s edition.
Couple more awesome things I love about this skit:
The star power in this one is crazy! You have Lindsay Lohan, Jimmy Fallon, Fred Armisen, and Amy Poehler.
I love when comedy from 18 (!) years ago still makes you laugh as hard as it did back then. It aged so well.
LOVE: Correcting People In Public Makes Them Double Down
The central feature we’ve talked about deploying in the “battle against misinformation” is “fact checking” or “immediately telling someone they are wrong in public.”
As shown in this paper, it ends up this is the exact wrong mechanism to use if you want someone to stop sharing misinformation.
All you are doing by correcting the misinformation is deepening the person’s conviction and increasing their aggression.
CLOSING TIME
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Disclaimer: Opinions expressed are strictly my own. Who else’s would they be?
Mahalo,
K.Rapp