Today I’m writing to share the techniques I’ve been using to deal with the rapid changes in the world’s situation, with the hope that it can help other people. It’s written from the perspective of a privileged European person, and is very focused on what I personally see as major issues: the possible comeback of fascism and authoritarianism in Western countries, and all kinds of threats on individual and collective freedom, especially mediated through digital tools.

If you don’t share my situation or my views I hope you’ll still find something useful in what I wrote.

Common feelings on the part of social media I’m in touch with seem to be despair and powerlessness. It can feel like there are such powerful forces at play that individually there isn’t much we can do.

The reality is that we collectively still have a lot of influence, and acting is a good way of staying mentally healthy. I personally witnessed the power of collective action, and would encourage anyone to join.

I’m fully aware that not everybody has the same options, risk tolerance and resources. What is described here is meant as starting points, that you can adapt to your circumstances. I also know some of you won’t have that many options. And for those who do have options because you have privileged positions and resources, this text is an encouragement to use them for the benefit of those who don’t.

So how do we not despair in the face of so many challenges?

TL;DR

Assuming I convinced you that acting was both possible and useful, I have two main suggestions for you:

Join a group that is already doing something

The present challenges are too big to be tackled at individual level. We need organized groups. There are plenty of organizations that are already driving change. Join forces with them.

Every small thing counts

You don’t need to solve big problems to help make the world a better place. Every small thing counts. It’s an effective remedy to apathy and to this feeling that you’re powerless. Listen to a friend in need, be kind to people around you, pick up a random piece of trash, have a chat with a homeless person, surprise someone with a random act of kindess. The idea is to stop waiting for others to do something: give a good example for others to follow. Even if you want to do big things, you’ll have to start small.

A postcard from Caritas Switzerland reading (translated from French) "May a single person suffer less - it's already a better world".

“May a single person suffer less and it’s already a better world.”

At a personal level

Mental Stance

We can do something. One of the hardest thing for me to acknowledge is that - from my perspective - the world seems to being going backward. However, what few people say is that nothing’s inevitable, that we don’t know yet how exactly the world will change, and that we still collectively have a lot of influence. We’re in a period of “historical flexibility” where a lot is possible, as Rutger Bregman puts it (see Rutger Bregman’s first Reith lecture and the lecture transcript). A lot of bad things can happen but a lot of good things too! We just need to do the hard work of making it happen, and in particular change the narrative (more on this below).

Keep the longer perspective in mind. For example, it’s hard to believe that death penalty, which is now unacceptable across many countries, used to be a family-friendly show in Europe. Rewatching European and American movies from the 80’s makes it very clear that the culture regarding sexism has also dramatically improved. Not that the fight is over - it never is - but we’ve seen substantial progress.

That said, change is rarely linear and we may see some regression in the short term. When this comes up, I always ask myself: would I rather strive for a better world and maybe fall short, rather than passively wait for things to go wrong? The world is a complicated mess. There are many outcomes other than great and terrible: every small thing we do can push us collectively towards “great”.

This too will end. Something that I learned in the past few months is that there is no such thing as a final “win” in terms of society and culture. Nothing’s ever set in stone, nothing’s final - especially when politics is involved. It cuts both ways: on one side it means that anything good can be destroyed (for example federal-level abortion rights in the USA), but also that bad things will come to an end eventually. We might be headed into dark times, but it’s worth keeping as much light as possible for the time being, and making sure there is a light at the end of the tunnel – no matter how long it’ll take. As an example: South Korea is already planning for reunification with North Korea, even though at the moment it looks like a pipe dream.

That means patience is very important – and getting into this mindset helps with mental health too. Aren’t things urgent? absolutely. And we also need to have a long-term mindset. Plant seeds now and let them grow. Mandy Brown’s “Patient urgency” explains it very well.

Care for Yourself and Others

It’s a real trope, but taking care of yourself helps with anxiety and mental health. Enjoy the real world! Go outside, meet people in the flesh, listen to them for the sake of listening, join a club. Exercice, eat tasty food. And accept that you’ll have bad days.

I find it very useful to take control of my news intake. We don’t have to be connected to social media or be aware of everything that is happening all the time – it’s fine. You can adjust the amount of news you’re exposed to by selecting who you follow and how much time you spend on social media. Some platforms are “slower” than others, and certain channels give you more control over what you see. Instead of using algorithm-heavy feeds like anything from Meta, X/Twitter, TikTok, Youtube, etc., you can use a good old RSS feeds from a blog you like, Mastodon, mailing lists, etc. These tools allow you to sort the feeds by categories which gives you much more control over what hits your eyeballs. I personally have a category “art” for photography, painting, CGI, and a category “activism” with content that requires more mental energy. That gives me the possibility of looking at the most taxing content when I choose to (i.e. in the morning, not right before bed).

I also found it very useful to drop feeds that only bring anxiety and no solutions. Those feeds are not really helpful with anything: the main consequence of not following them is saving my energy for things that actually help. It also has a bit of a collective effect, by reducing the size of these feeds’s audience.

In general, it’s a good idea to wait before reacting to something that upsets you. First, it avoids mistakes: the fact that something triggers an emotional reaction has no connection with factuality or usefulness, and giving oneself time to think about how to react leads to better decisions. Second it protects others: immediately re-sharing something upsetting only means that we make other people upset. Doing nothing avoids amplifying damaging messages.

One example of how sharing can be harmful is criti-hype: when someone criticizes the dubious claims made by another party, they propagate those claims they criticize. For a detailed explanation, see Cory Doctorow’s “Three more AI psychoses”.

It’s often very hard to do nothing, because platforms have been designed to make us reshare triggering content. I personally bask in the feeling that I’ve slowed down the spread of such content by not doing anything – sometimes the best action is inaction.

I also found that it helps a lot to connect with people who are already thinking of building a better future. Some of them have been doing that for a while! I already mentioned Rutger Bregman, whose books I find very uplifting. I would also recommend Robert Reich, whose videos and talks always make me feel there is a path forward. There are many others, it’s worth spending some time finding them.

Finally, it can be useful to also prepare for bad things to happen. We can learn lessons from people who have actually experienced a repressive environment. Two references: Vaclav Havel’s “The Power of the Powerless”, and this interview with Shin Yang, a Taiwanese activist who created safe spaces for queer people in a culture that doesn’t accept them.

Oh, and do you have a Russian friend? Maybe worth asking them for tips.

A nice quote from Shin Yang’s interview:

[…] that’s what free expression means to me. It’s not “I can say anything.” It’s about whether you can continue to think independently and live with integrity through layers of fear, pressure, temptation and coercion, while still moving forward and creating more possibilities for others.

Beyond the personal level

If you’re interested in improving society as a whole, you need to join forces with others.

Your voice as a citizen carries weight

It turns out that we are collectively successfully pushing back and/or winning some battles, even important ones. The Chat Control story is a good example (at least as of March 2026). For those who need to catch up, see Patrick Breyer’s page on Chat Control. In short: the European Commission is pushing a regulation proposal that mandates the scanning of all private communications – including end-to-end encrypted ones – for the purpose of identifying child sexual abuse material. While the intention is good – protecting children is a good thing! – the implementation is disproportionate and even violates the European Convention of Human Rights, which protects the privacy of correspondence in Article 8. Despite a very strong political push, collective action from a lot of citizens was effective, and the proposal didn’t go through (so far). There are many similar stories just in the last 1-2 years.

This could happen because a lot of people have been working to protect society for a long while, and they know what they’re doing. A simple way of taking collective action is simply to support those people and organizations. Depending on your means and situation – not everybody can afford to stick their head out – that can take many forms:

  • support them financially. People in power are not too keen on paying for people who will oppose them, so funding is scarce – though there are some real sources of funding, like civitates-eu.org or limelight.foundation.
  • follow them on social media, or sign up for their mailing lists. Having a lot of subscribers gives an organization weight when talking to institutions.
  • amplify their narrative, though I would recommend heavily prioritizing calls for action, rather than emotionally-charged posts. Amplification can include small groups like your family or this WhatsApp group of friends
  • advertise the organization and bring more people to it
  • respond to their call for action: e.g. signing a petition, reaching out to your representatives, going to a protest, etc.
  • volunteer. A lot of organizations welcome contributions in many forms.

Finding an organization

It can take some time to find an organization that you feel comfortable supporting, and it’s worth learning a bit about them before supporting one. A lot can usually be learned from their website, including sources of funding, previous positions, the background of the people in charge, effectiveness, etc. That said, there is no way to find a perfect organisation: You will not agree with all their opinions, nor with all their actions. It’s fine – as long as they are pushing in a general direction that you agree with.

How do you find those organizations in practice? One way of doing it is to ask a search engine for an organization active on your favorite topic. Find a first one that is related to your interests, then look up their sources of funding – it’s usually available on the website. Then go to those funding organizations’s websites, and look at the list of organizations they fund, rinse, repeat. Sometimes you find a meta-organization (edri.org is an example in the digital rights space) that will directly give you a whole list of related organizations.

To help you get started, here are a few entry points (not meant as endorsements):

Conclusion

It bears repeating: there is a lot we can collectively do. I hope I’ve been able to nudge you towards feeling more in control and maybe get you to help with making the world a better place.

Any feedback will be welcome: yoyonax@proton.me, or on Mastodon: @docta_gervais@social.tchncs.de.

Disclosure: I am volunteering with www.digitale-gesellschaft.ch and edri.org.