Climate anxiety is making it hard for me to plan anything beyond the next few months. I’ll start thinking about school, work, where I might live, or saving money, then this thought creeps in that maybe none of it will matter if things keep getting worse.
I know the future has never been guaranteed, but it feels different when I’m constantly seeing news about fires, floods, extreme heat, and people losing their homes. Sometimes making normal plans feels almost selfish, even though I know I can’t fix everything by worrying about it.
I’m trying to focus on smaller, practical things and limit how often I check the news, but the fear still comes back. It’s exhausting wanting a future while also being scared of what that future might look like.
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The thought that planning is selfish really hit me. Wanting a home, savings, or work you enjoy isn’t ignoring the climate crisis. Those things can give you stability and more capacity to help when something difficult happens.
I’ve had better luck making plans in shorter sections, like deciding what I want this year without demanding certainty about the next twenty years. I once set up an automatic savings transfer and stopped checking the balance every day. It was a small step, but it made the future feel less like something I had to solve all at once.
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@Carrie_Hansen, the automatic savings transfer is a good example of making a future plan without needing complete certainty. I’ve found that putting one small thing on autopilot keeps me from turning every decision into a referendum on whether the future is safe.
I’m trying to do something similar with practical plans, like keeping emergency supplies updated while still making ordinary plans for work and home. Both can exist at the same time.