How to Make 2025 Your “Bubble” Year
My 13th birthday was unremarkable. Nineteen Sixty-nine was full of important events.
- Joe Namath led the Jets to victory over the Colts in the Super Bowl that year, 16 to 7.
- Richard Nixon was inaugurated as president of the United States.
- Katherine Hepburn and Barbara Streisand tied for Best-Actress Oscar.
- Jim Morrison dies of heart failure.
- Charles Manson’s cult-followers murdered Sharon Tate
- Woodstock festival happened. Yeah, baby!
- The first US ATM opened for business.
- “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” premiered in New York City.
- “The Brady Bunch” and “Sesame Street” begin their TV reign.
Nothing important happened on my birthday, the day I turned 13, July 19, 1969.
July 20, 1968
It was the day after my birthday that I’ll never forget. My mom and I were besties, mostly. We had lots of common interests. We both were drawn to science and travel. On the day after my birthday, we rolled our black-and-white TV into my bedroom, sat on the edge of my bed, eyes glued to the television, and we watched Neil Armstrong land and set foot on the moon.
“Houston, this is Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.”
Just mom and me, Neil Armstrong, and Tranquility Base.
I’ve thought a lot about that day 55 years ago. Somehow it was fitting that Tranquility Base was the site that we shared together that early morning. Throughout her life, my mom seemed to exude tranquility. Despite all of her adversities: the loss of three children, being disowned by her mother over religion, and the loss of our father, to name a few, she epitomized what it means to be tranquil.
Tranquility is a rare commodity in today’s world. Maybe it’s always been rare. After all, the Stoics wrote about it 2000 years ago. What is tranquility? It’s a state of being that is absent from or maybe immunized mostly from the chaos and confusion that can permeate our environment.
Tranquility is maybe like armor. It’s not about changing the environment, but of course, changing your environment could help, but it’s more about changing yourself, and in a sense it’s about protecting yourself. Tranquility is finding inner peace and quiet, despite the outer noise, chaos, and confusion.
It’s all about finding your own Tranquility Base.
What kind of lesson did I learn, and can we learn, about finding tranquility for 2025? Last year I wrote about making a map for a guide through 2024. A map to a place called Clarity. I wrote about the body-mine connection and maintaining a healthy brain. What’s good for the heart is good for the brain. That included exercise, nutrition, eliminating sugar and alcohol, and getting good sleep.
But instead of making a map to Tranquility, I suggest making a Tranquility Bubble in 2025.
That’s what my mom did. It wasn’t so much finding Tranquility Base, for her, as much as it was developing a Tranquility Bubble.
I’m talking about a bubble that will act like a filter. I know a mixing metaphors, but this bubble will keep toxins, or what I’m calling Tranquility Busters, out of your life and mind.
I’m not talking about filtering out the hard stuff, the stuff that you need for growth. There are things, ideas, people, experiences, and obligations in your life that are hard and unpleasant and that you need in your life.
I hate getting blood work. It sucks the joy out of my life. It’s a Tranquility Buster.
I hate going to the dentist. A Tranquility Buster.
I hate reading obituaries. I hate administrative work. I hate being stuck on an airplane with an annoying traveler. All tranquility busters.
But you have to do those things and expose you to those things that have the potential of robbing you of your tranquility.
I take some time each day and take a snapshot of the social injustices in the world, people’s meanness, and the despair brought on by war, famine, and crime. I ponder the wellness of our planet.
I don’t wallow in these things, but I try to do something about them by mostly giving money to organizations that support social justice and environmental causes.
The Tranquility Bubble isn’t a “head in the sand” response to life. You can’t and shouldn’t hide from problems.
But you can filter out the bullshit.
Creating a bubble isn’t easy because it involves habits and routines that you’ve developed over the years. In all likelihood it includes an addiction scrolling or a toxic relationship.
Making My bubble
I reviewed my life for 2024 and asked myself what were the Tranquility Busters?
Local morning news
My wife and I have developed a routine of getting up in the morning, getting a cup of coffee, and turning on the local news. It’s a tranquility Buster. We’ve all heard the slogan, “If it bleeds, it leads.” The local news is depressing. Automobile fatalities. Murders. Carjackings. Child-pornography arrests. A house fire killing a family of five in Abilene, Texas. Do we really need to know what happened in Abilene, Texas?
Often what is being reported has nothing to do with anything I can do something about. (I can feel the tension so much that I can’t even write a coherent sentence).
I’m not talking about real news. I’m talking about sensational-tabloid news. So, we have decided that local morning news is a Tranquility Buster and we’ve stopped watching it.
What we’ve started doing is watching the News App on our TV for our local channel and we have begun picking and choosing what we watch, you know, filter. We watch sports, and weather, and maybe even some of the short episodes of local attractions, but no sensational and pointlessly graphic-tabloid news. The Tranquility Bubble.
Social media
Social media can be a Tranquility Buster. It’s full of “hit and run posts,” “vague” posts, “My life is full of drama, and I’m sharing every second of it with you” posts, and “I’ve got an opinion and you’re going to be exposed to it whether you like it or not” posts. TRANQUILITY BUSTERS!
You know the stuff I’m talking about. I don’t have a lot of friends on Facebook, Instagram, or Threads, but if you post something that I consider a Tranquility Buster, I’ll unfollow you. I do the same with groups as well. Nothing sucks more than being assaulted with drama and negativity on social media.
I scroll. There, I’ll admit it. But I do not doom scroll. If there is something offensive that pops up on Reels or Instagram, I click the three little buttons at the top and indicate, “I do not want to see any more posts like this.”
My Tranquility Bubble filters out all the crap on social media!
Politics/Religion/People
I am mostly apolitical; and I’m mostly areligious. I’m registered as an independent and I practice Jungian-Psychological Theism. Yes, I am atheist.
But I’m very private about both topics.
I hate, hate, hate arguing, or debating about either. I love good, healthy conversations and discussions about all things. Politics and religion are included. But some people, some people don’t. Some people are crusaders about politics and religion. For me, THEY are Tranquility Busters and I have decided that they will not be allowed inside the bubble.
I cannot keep some family members outside the Tranquility Bubble, but I can let them know that arguments about religion and politics will get them booted out (Ok, I probably won’t boot them out but I will censure them).
Here is something that we all need to come to grips with:
All relationships are conditional.
You may need to end a relationship because of political/religious zeal and intolerance.
We want and need friendships, but not friendships that become a platform for others to spew their ilk. So, out of the Tranquility Bubble. Why be in a relationship that makes you feel worse? A tranquility Buster.
I could go on. I’m careful about what I read, especially health and fitness sites that remind me that everything I do is wrong and I need to do it their way.
Tranquility Busters.
What gets into my Tranquility Bubble?
Of course you need people, ideas, inspiration, and activities that promote tranquility in your Bubble.
My wife, my sons, my daughters-in-law, granddaughters, clients, yes clients, are all in my Bubble.
Friends. Coworkers. Mentors on the web: Peter Attia and Andrew Huberman. All in the Bubble.
Art is in my Tranquility Bubble. Music. Movies. Science documentaries from people like Neil deGrasse Tyson. Stoicism. Jungian scholars. Books about Synchronicity.
Lots of stuff gets in.
How’s your tranquility? Forget the resolutions! Make a bubble.
Nothing is easy about change, but don’t be afraid to try. Maybe a bubble is a good tool for you this year. Make it a Tranquility Bubble.
