I was working with a young film maker the other day who told me he ‘didn’t want to learn too much’, just in case he became troubled about the world through this potential new-found knowledge. Well, I guess I can understand that. I used to feel the same. When you open your eyes and look past the automatic thoughts that adults, society, government, TV, the internet offer you it’s difficult sometimes to see past the ‘noise’ of intellectual chatter – that goes double for bad boy posturing and girly gossip (or vice versa).
The thing I’ve found over the years is that you will inevitably get caught in cognitive traps – believing what other people tell you when you know through either experience, knowledge or insight that the belief in question is either just plain wrong or a little bit fuzzy round the middle. And you will stress about things whatever your level of intellect. So here’s my best advice to cope with the fear of overload:
Test yourself. Put yourself in a situation that scares you, regularly. That way you’ll raise the stakes on what you call stress and cope with overload more easily.
Say ‘fuck it’ regularly. Find something you think is really important and just shout out ‘Fuck it!’ Go on try it you’ll feel better for it. Now do that for the rest of the day. Sometimes you just need to cut yourself a break and let go. This western mantra is simply the Buddhist principle of ‘letting go’ if that makes you feel any better. It doesn’t? Well fuck it anyway!
Disrupt patterns. If you always catch the bus to school, walk it for a change. Then take a different route every day. If you only ever wear assassin black, try something pink. Go on be bold. It’s been shown that insight comes from allowing multiple pathways for understanding to be built in the brain. The most adaptive types of people (successful types if you’re into self-help) use multiple maps of the territory in order to be most effective. Try this: if you’re an atheist go to church for a month. If you’re religious go without god and be a moral being without a handy checklist for a month. If you always argue, let the other person win for a whole day. If you’re always serious learn a cheesy joke every day and then tell it to someone! Watch what happens.
It’s true because… If someone tells you something and it just doesn’t ring true, say a politician with a new stat, a new medical break through, some well-worn piece of economics dogma, a, conspiracy theory, whatever. Then go and find out for yourself what is true. I tried this first with a a secretive group of people called the Bilderbergers who, depending on who you read were either the secret rulers of the world or a piece of disinformation invented by the CIA. Neither were true, but they do exist and wield a lot of power. But this little gem will work for you with any part of life. Sometimes you’ll find out that nobody knows the answer but by asking questions you may, and that then makes you the expert.
In summary: find things out for yourself, disrupt patterns, say ‘Fuck it’ and let go, test yourself and know your abilities.
Here endeth the babble kids.
by 
Writer, Entrepreneur, Speaker, Father.
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