A lot of us are struggling with what is happening in the world right now

Both mainstream and social media are full of harrowing stories and images of physical and emotional pain, and destruction on apocalyptic levels. For a lot of us it feels almost impossible to work out our response without feeling futile, fearful and frankly hopeless

What is a worthwhile, courageous and hope-fueled response to so much unimaginable suffering?

In the face of suffering and destruction, our natural instinct is to work out what needs to be done to make the suffering stop. Sometimes there is an obvious thing we can personally do, for example, to share our resources with people who need them more than we do to survive the tragic circumstances they find themselves in, or to repair and rescue things which have been destroyed or are at risk of extinction

Yet should we do more than this?

For example, does it genuinely support others by posting things on social media? These are sometimes complex situations...

Illustration: @ljmlondon2014

For some of us, this year has definitely been overwhelming - a lot of us are now looking towards 2022 not quite sure how and where we will find the positive energy to relish the ride which is no doubt still ahead

Wrung out and bone dry, exhausted with the constant uncertainty of what we can and can't do, what is and isn't dangerous for our friends and family, the blurring of lines between home and work, the loneliness and boredom of self-isolation, the mind-bending juggling of zoom calls with stressed colleagues and squabbling children  

Stuck clinging on a pendulum, swinging wildly between overwhelm and scrabbling desperately for a 'secure new normal' - neither trusting authority (the parties were the final straw of hypocrisy) nor secure and confident in our ever changing daily routines

We are overwhelmed and burnt out because we feel so completely out of control of our lives

So for many of us, our way to take some of the control back - has been to qu...