From Anxiety to Mental Clarity: Why Your Information Diet Matters

Humans consume information to actualize goals and visions.

You direct your limited attention to information that contributes to an unconscious or conscious goal you have.

You highlight texts that help you pass exams, focus on the present to obtain mental clarity, and self-educate to build skills for your projects. Everything else—the distractions—is ignored.

And you reflect this focused attention, like a mirror, back to the world with laser focus—creating pyramids and landings on the moon.

Attention is the foundation of progress and growth.

Yet, we all continue to toss it away this invaluable tool.

People share you reels of the memes and routines, celebrity gossip and political updates like they're family news.

You share them for a quick laugh, but in the process you fall into a mechanical cycle of consumption.

And at the slightest hint of boredom or anxiety, irked by life's uncertainty, you reach for the phone.

So I ask you: What goal does this contribute to?

The problem: Instead of choosing the information that helps you grow, you’ve outsourced that choice to your environment.

You let society feed you distractions, making your brain sluggish and unfocused.

You stop self-educating—the cornerstone of growth. You've been conditioned into a routine of consuming low-value content, fattening your mental diet with junk.

The result? Overwhelm and uncertainty. Anxiety runs rampant and you scroll even more. Mental clarity is replaced with mental noise. You've become ever increasingly inarticulate and close-minded, becoming blind to better solutions beyond the ones given to us.

By forfeiting your attention, you’ve forfeited control of your goals. You are fed garbage, and your brain—a tool for creating and solving problems—is now filled with noise.

My point is this:

Your ability to manifest your life goals depends on the quality of your information diet. To actualize your potential, you must take control of what you consume.

Attention management key in a society with an attention deficit. It is key to discovering a more fulfilling life aligned with your, not anyone else's, vision.

It is part of the equation that leads you out of a life monotony and to live with intention:

Curate and Create

II. Loss of your Curation Autonomy

1. Societal Given Information

You feel lost because most of the information you consume is assigned. It's the same distractions spoon-fed to us through our phones or society to keep us passive.

Dan Koe puts it well:

Information curation is the modern-day equivalent of hunting.

Our ancestors hunted for food to survive. They adapted to whatever information their environment gave them—whether it was deserts, forests, or arctic landscapes—they had to hunt and thrive. It’s literally how humanity has survived until now.

It's no different today: you are a hunter, albeit in the digital world, confronting the unknown and seeking out knowledge that serves your survival or actualization goals.

But most of us are placed in a zoo environment—where the food, or in this case, information—is handed straight to us. We’re fed distractions, viral trends, and superficial news. We become reliant on a society and tradition to keep us comfortable.

And the moment the environment changes—the job market crashes, you get laid off, or your safety net is pulled away—you find that you don’t have the hunting skills to survive outside.

You’ve lost the ability to adapt, and your on the way to extinction.

Self-reliance in the digital world means knowing how to hunt—knowing how to curate what you consume. Curation is the first step toward autonomy and having power over yourself.

If you don’t control your attention, society will do it for you. And they will do it at your expense. While you consume news and memes, they profit—whether it’s through ad revenue, political influence, or social conditioning.

Take Fidel Castro’s Cuba as a historical reference. The government maintained monopolistic control over information and media, leveraging propaganda to instill specific values and beliefs across the population.

Today’s information control may not be as overt, but modern society is setting up young people for failure by flooding their minds with distractions.

Modern society is setting up young people up failure for their own gains. And if you want more evidence of this, here's Scott Galloway's argument. Shocker, I know.

2. Noise and Mental Unclarity

Information now isn't just shallow—they’re designed to distract you. And distractions are everywhere, constantly overwhelming us with noise.

The sheer volume of content we consume contributes to the problem. We’re feeding ourselves mental junk that pollutes our ability to focus, make clear decisions, and enter a state of flow.

Flow, as psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi describes, is the key to enjoyment and productivity. It’s that moment when your thoughts, feelings, and attention align with the present, and you become fully immersed the process of the task. This is when you achieve peak performance and enjoyment. (I’ll dive deeper into this in a future letter.)

But here’s the problem: you can’t reach flow if your mind is cluttered with noise—whether that noise is societal or self-imposed. We’ve become reactive:

• Our thoughts linger on the latest news and information.

• Our feelings get anxious from unconscious comparison,

• Our attention is split five different ways.

When this happens, flow is interrupted. Your vision, now polluted with noise, leads to unnecessary stress. You pull yourself further away from the present moment and further away from clarity.

And what are we overwhelmed for?

Overwhelm isn’t always a bad thing. In fact, I’d argue that we need to be overwhelmed by the unknown to learn, grow, and discover.

But the kind of overwhelm that comes from distractions is different. It’s an unnecessary amplifier of stress—noise that adds more weight to an already crowded mind, pushing you into anxiety, boredom, and confusion.

We live in a world where our brains are bombarded with notifications, news, and entertainment, all packaged as something urgent.

But here’s the truth: the more noise you consume, the less clarity you have.

Often, I hear people say: “I’m just winding down, I deserve a break.”

And yes, you need relax at times, it is vital to take rest for long-term productivity—but think about how you’re doing

Just like poor diet leads to physical fat, mental junk leads to mental fat. You’re zoning out, switching from one mindless task to another, while deep work and meaningful enjoyment slip away.

You can’t rest your attention by feeding it more noise. It’s like a camera lens—sometimes you need to zoom out and focus on the bigger picture, not just add more clutter.

Here’s a quick exercise: Can you even remember everything you scrolled through today? Probably not, because you weren’t truly present when you did it. That’s the cost of mindless consumption.

Instead of scrolling through distractions, try taking a real break. Go for a walk, have lunch with a friend, and when you do, engage the present.

Notice the details of the trees, the architecture of the buildings, the sound of people talking. Engage in real conversations. Don’t just be there—be present.

I also hear from people who feel they need to keep up with every political issue or crisis, thinking it makes them more informed. But ask yourself: how can you help others when you haven’t even taken care of yourself?

Be selfish to be selfless—it’s a paradox, but it’s true. If you’re mentally scattered, overwhelmed, and distracted, your ability to make a meaningful difference os negligable.

This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t care about the world, but it means you need to care strategically. Focus on what genuinely matters to you, not what’s thrown at you.

You can’t save the world until you save your attention.

3. The limits of your language

You only know as much as you allow yourself to consume.

If you don’t expand that consumption—if you don’t know the choices you could have taken—your world remains small.

Here's a story to illustrate this:

Both the child and the marine biologist are looking at the same ocean, but their understanding is completely different.

Why?

Because the biologist has the language—the knowledge—to perceive the complexity of what the child can only call "water."

But most people stop expanding their language—their understanding of the world—after formal education.

They opt out of self-education and stay in the comfort zone. They stop seeking new perspectives, new knowledge, and as a result, they become stuck.

Here's the reality: You are blind. I am blind. There is always something someone else knows that you don’t, and that knowledge gives them an advantage.

The only way to escape this blindness is through self-education and experimentation. You expand the language through which you see the world. You begin to see opportunities, choices, and solutions that you never noticed.

When you stop self-educating, you limit yourself to what you already know, and your understanding of the world narrows. You can only make decisions based on the limited information you have.

You stop challenging your existing beliefs. Your higher objective thinking—your critical lens on the world—starts to dull. You lose the ability to question what you see, to think outside the box, and to make informed decisions about your life.

This is how people get exploited—by hyper-focusing your attention on a narrow set of knowledge, skills, and noise. You become a specialists, narrow in, while losing sight of the bigger picture.

To keep your mind sharp, to continue growing, you need to expand your language and curate perspectives.

The key is to expand your perspective to encompass multiple viewpoints.

The more perspectives you understand, the clearer your vision becomes, and the less likely you are to be blindsided by the limitations of your own knowledge.

III. Opportunity

Now I may have painted a grim picture of an attention Armageddon, where corporate distractions are stealing our focus, and our ability to curate information is ruined.

Modernity looks f*cked.

But there’s opportunity.

The internet, while overwhelming, is also a tool for liberation.

Anyone, regardless of where they start, now has access to opportunities that were once out of reach. You just need to know how to use it properly.

Here's what you can do today:

1. Figure out your vision and goal

Before you even curate, you need to have a target. All information you curate will be filtered and directed towards that goal.

If you don't have a goal, you will get distracted.

Your vision doesn’t need to be perfectly clear, and it doesn’t need to stay the same forever. It will evolve as you learn more. Specificity helps, but flexibility is key.

• Do you have an ideal lifestyle you'd love to have everyday? Do you have that ideal lifestyle right now? How do you want to feel? Look like?

• The habits you have right now. Where will those habits lead you to in 3 years? Are you content with it?

• What goal would help you get out of your current situation or get closer to that ideal lifestyle? Going to the gym? Starting a personal brand or entrepreneurial pursuit?

Once you have this vision, let it guide your present actions. Use it as a framework to decide what’s worth your attention.

Goals aren’t set in stone—they’re meant to shape your actions in the moment, not paralyze you with long-term rigidity.

Converge it to the present and act on the present with confidence. Even in days of worry and , this will guide you knowing you are taking the right step.

2. Content Curator (Standards)

Start curating the information you consume. This includes the people you follow and interact with. Reduce the noise and amplify the signal.

Weigh the cost of social media. If it doesn’t serve your purpose, don't? For business and education, sure, there’s value—but even then, curate intentionally.

Only follow and engage with content that aligns with your goals.

Read books, watch YouTube videos, and listen to podcasts.

Drown in perspectives of people you look up to who live the life you want to. Be ok with investing on knowledge acquisition.

The time you spend scrolling could be swapped out for podcasts or audiobooks. When you’re commuting, listen to mentors who inspire you to solve current problems—or even spark ideas for new ones.

3. Apply — Content Creator

Every piece of information you consume should serve a purpose—whether it’s helping you solve a problem or create something.

A trap I see often is people get stuck in tutorial hell, trying to learn everything before they start. But the truth is, you make mistakes to learn.

And that’s okay. You’ll learn, you’ll seek out new information, and you’ll refine your goals. You will develop the process that works for uniquely for you.

My medium for learning is this newsletter and my videos. Writing is how I apply what I learn and clarify my thoughts. Without it, I wouldn’t be able to track my progress or refine my process.

Start before you’re ready. The process of creating will guide your learning. This is the essence of self-experimentation—learning as you go, and letting your curiosity dictate what you need to master next.

4. Structure and Systemize

Your day is a project in itself—a problem of how to allocate your time in a way that balances the duality of rest and work. The key is to experiment and research to find what works best for you.

Everyone has responsibilities. You have school, work, and life commitments. But structure is crucial to making time for everything that matters.

Here's how I structure my school day currently to fit for reference:

Block out 9-5 for your primary responsibilities—school, work, or whatever your obligations are. This time is dedicated to getting things done.

Before 9 AM: Produce and focus on yourself. I spend this time to write. This is your time to build something meaningful or engage in activities that fuel you.

After 5 PM: Prioritize rest and self-education. Use this time to recharge and expand your knowledge, whether that’s reading, learning a new skill, or pursuing something you’re curious about.

You might feel like there’s never enough time, but the reality is, you have more time than you think.

If you want to stay stuck in the same routine with the same old outcomes, then by all means, keep doing what you're doing.

But if you want to grow, use that time.

Final Note

If you're reading this, understand that we may be the last generation to truly have the opportunity that the internet provides—combined with the attention span to do deep work. As Naval Ravikant says:

We are the last generation to have experienced a life before the attention dystopia.

Everyone born from this point onward will not have a reference point for a life without constant distractions, infinite scrolling, and endless notifications.

They won’t know what it’s like to have uninterrupted thought, to spend time truly present without the pull of their phone. We have something they don’t—a memory of a time when attention wasn’t for sale.

Use that memory of the past life to build to the life you want.

So for those who take action, it’s a blessing. For those who don’t, it’s a curse.

Take action now.

P.S. If you’re interested in diving deeper into these topics, I cover this and more on my YouTube Channel.

Thanks for reading,

-AL