When conflict is happening thousands of kilometres away in places like Ukraine or Iran, it can feel disconnected from everyday life in Australia.
Most people have already felt the impact, or will very soon, not just through headlines, but through their wallets, their work, and their sense of security.
The best way to understand it is this, we live in a deeply connected world, especially when it comes to energy. Oil is not just about petrol in your car, it influences transport, food production, manufacturing, medicine and just about every supply chain you can think of.
When war disrupts supply, prices rise everywhere.
Right now, global oil prices have surged due to conflict in the Middle East, with flow-on effects already being felt at the bowser and beyond.
In Australia, petrol prices have jumped sharply, in some cases by more than one dollar a litre in just a few weeks.
That increase doesn’t stay contained, it moves through the economy, lifting the cost of goods, services and ultimately the cost of living.
We saw a similar pattern occur with the war in Ukraine. Russia is a major global energy supplier, and when that supply was disrupted, fuel prices rose and inflation followed, the same pattern is repeating now.
Economists are warning that rising fuel costs are “making us all poorer” and may even push inflation and interest rates higher.
Beyond the economics, there’s a human layer to this that matters just as much.
When costs rise and uncertainty grows, people feel less secure, and when we feel less secure, we tend to move into what choice theory would describe as external control thinking. We start looking outward for someone to blame as well as someone or something to fix our discomfort.
Governments, oil companies, other countries, even the people around us can become targets of our frustration and anger.
Our relationships too can begin to feel the strain; financial pressure is one of the most common sources of tension in families and workplaces.
Something as simple as the cost of filling the car or paying the power bill can quickly shift the emotional tone in a household if we let it, as we look for someone close by to blame and vent our feelings on.
This is where it becomes important to pause and ask a different question. Not “Why is this happening to me?” but “Given this is happening, how can I respond in a way that doesn’t hurt me or my relationships with those I care about?”
We don’t control global conflicts, oil supply routes, or international politics, but we do have influence over how we manage ourselves in response.
That might mean having more open conversations about money, adjusting expectations, or simply recognising that the tension we feel is a response to situations we can’t control, not a failure in ourselves or others.
There’s also something useful in understanding what’s really going on.
Much of what we’re experiencing is not personal, it’s systemic.
Australia imports a large portion of its fuel, making us particularly sensitive to global disruptions.
So, when prices rise, it’s not because someone locally has done something wrong, it’s because the world is interconnected in ways we can’t always see.
We may be far removed from the conflict itself, but we are still part of a shared global system.
The challenge is to not be frustrated that we don’t control that system, but to stay grounded within it.
We need to focus on what we can control, what we choose to do, how we relate to the people around us, and how we maintain a sense of steadiness when the world feels anything but.
While we can’t always choose our circumstances, we do always have the say in how we choose to be within them.
