I don't Have To Be Outraged By Things That Don't Outrage Me

​I’m learning something about myself these days: I don’t have to be outraged by things that don’t outrage me.

That might sound obvious, but it isn’t in a culture where outrage spreads faster than the truth ever could. I saw it again this week. Jimmy Kimmel said something on his show. Hardly anyone noticed in the moment. But almost a day later, a few high-profile voices expressed their outrage, and suddenly it was everywhere.

Commentators dissecting it. Headlines amplifying it. Friends and strangers echoing it.

And I found myself wondering, how much of what outrages us actually outrages us?

I think a lot of us have become megaphones for outrage that isn’t even ours. We hear someone else raise their voice and we instinctively raise ours. Not because we felt the sting ourselves, but because silence feels risky. Because belonging to a side feels safer than standing in the middle. Because outrage, these days, is how you prove your loyalty.

I suppose I have been there, maybe I get drawn back into it from time to time, but I know I have no desire to any longer live there.

There’s a difference between outrage that’s really ours and outrage we just copy. Real outrage comes when something touches what we believe deep down, when it bumps into our own values or experiences. That’s the kind of thing that stirs you to speak or act because it matters to you.

The other kind is borrowed. That’s when we carry someone else’s anger even if it doesn’t actually come from our own heart.

The danger is that borrowed outrage exhausts us. It crowds out the things we are genuinely called to care about. It can even numb us to our own convictions. Worse, it makes outrage look performative - like a way of keeping score, or a way of being seen, rather than a force for meaningful change.

I don’t mean silence is always the answer. Silence has its own cost. Like I wrote yesterday, I’ve lived that cost. I spent years in a marriage believing silence was the healthy option. It wasn’t. Speaking up - early, honestly, and imperfectly - might have saved things.

Silence can wound just as much as words.

But here’s the distinction I’m trying to live into: not every spark deserves my fire. If I’m going to speak out, I want it to be because the outrage is mine and not someone else’s echo.

The world doesn’t need more megaphones. It needs more people who know the difference between a passing wave of noise and a deep call of conviction.

So I’m learning to let the waves pass. And when the deep call comes, I’ll know it’s mine.