No News is Good News

Hey all,

How are you settling into the new year? Are you still hitting it out of the park with the resolutions? Come on, you can do it, don’t give up. I believe in you.

So, we are just ten days in and it appears we are off to a wild start. Australia is burning to the ground, Iran and the United States are on the brink of war, and I’ve had to shovel 100 cm of snow since Christmas. Ok, that last one’s selfish of me considering, but it’s still got me on edge when I flip on the news.

I watch the news almost everyday. If I’m not, it’s still on during suppertime in the background. Then well, like everybody else today, I see various forms of the news from social media or while surfing the internet. Impossible to avoid it. I mean, there’s nothing wrong staying informed and up to date on what’s going on, but for me it comes at a cost. It comes in the form of sucking the life out of me. Yes, there’s the odd positive story, though it’s the not so positive stuff that grabs more attention and those precious ratings. 

The other day I was thinking about the holidays again. Not wishing that I was back there, although…no, no it wasn’t that. No, I was thinking about how distracted I got from the news. Not on purpose, it’s just with my time away on Christmas vacation, I was clear from the rinse and repeat of a typical work day. No radio on the morning or evening commute, no interoffice chat conversations about the lastest breaking story, and no supper time news flashes.

When I thought about that a little more, I was amazed to realized how much of an effect the news was really having on me, specifically the bad news. It was a thing. Look, I consider myself a very positive person, but I have to be honest, the more exposure I have to all that bad news I mentioned, the more unhappy I seem to become. How about you? Is the news a constant bummer for you? Do you find you mood changing when you hear some of the things that are going on around the world? Does it stick to you like a bad smell?

I don’t know, I started this entry because I was feeling a little over-exposed to all the negativity to be honest. With all the fallout that’s been going on, I’m not seeing 2020 as of just yet. I feel helpless when it comes to the Australian thing. I get panicked and ask why is that a small few in the world get to dangle my life and future in front of me jabbing at war with hashtags. Then they act on it. Think about that for a second. It’s sad, and it’s even sadder that we still haven’t learned when it comes to war. It’s that sort of headspace that prompted me to make this entry. To see who else out there feels the same way as I do. It’s hard enough to get through a day dealing with your own stressors and responsibilities. Making ends meet and staying healthy and happy. Compound that with the woes of the rest of the world, well, it can make you want to shut all the doors and all the curtains and retreat to some panic room deep within the earth.

Friends, there’s no doubt we need the news, it’s a necessary evil. And, yes, I’m being dramatic to stress a point. But, it’s the truth that I found my mood altered after being peppered every day this week with some of the stuff going on in the world. We absolutely need to know what’s going on the world too. Don’t get me wrong. Sometimes it’s up to us to fix and change some of the things we see reported each day on the 6:00 News. It’s important we have that. For ourselves, for our kids, and for the many generations to come. Only, make sure every now and again you remember that sometimes, no news…is good news.

It’s sometimes the small things we do that helps the bigger picture!

Stay you!!!!

Until