SELF-HELP MEETS THE SYSTEM

“Back To” Season Is Upon Us. How to Stay Sane.

Starting Monday, September 11, Julio Vincent Gambuto will present “Modern Muting” — a weekly Medium story series dedicated to helping readers step back from all the bullshit of modern life, create quiet, re-evaluate, then go forward boldly. It’s 500 words a week of “self-help meets the system.” New stories drop each Monday.

It’s the last week before “Back to” season begins. Back to school. Back to soccer practices. Back to the office more than once a week. Whatever it is, here’s your permission to not go back to pure madness. Take a few minutes this holiday weekend to yourself — at home, at the beach, in a corner away from the kids — to actively decide what gets to come back into life and what does not.

How do you do that? First, name the three major sources of anxiety, tension, disruption in your personal life and in your professional life. As you try to locate them, look for them in three places: (1) on your screen, (2) in your calendar, (3) in your social circles. Who or what creates a disproportionate amount of noise? How can you step away, set clearer boundaries, eliminate, or soften the overwhelm? What conversation might you be avoiding that will help you to do that? Pick one — the noisiest — and go after it with a fucking sledge hammer. (Not the person, the…