Keeping up with the news

Years ago, after reading several motivational books criticizing news reporting, I stopped paying attention to the news. I didn’t visit any news websites. I didn’t watch TV much and if I did, it wasn’t the local or national news. I didn’t read the newspaper.

During that time, my mood improved. I stopped surrounding myself with people bitterly criticizing everything around them. I stopped focusing on “keeping up” with the news of the day.

Some people criticized me and said I buried my head in the sand. They were probably right. But I learned that it wasn’t a bad thing.

I significantly boosted my career during this time. I lost weight, went back to school for a graduate degree and quit smoking. I became happier and healthier. Overall, my life improved by having my head in the sand.

Instead of having my energy sucked out of me or turned to anger, I remained energetic yet calm. I improved much of my life. I better controlled my mood and emotional response to situations.

And this wasn’t a short-term change. And it wasn’t to cut out certain news channels. In fact, one day while dropping my car off to get repaired I stopped and looked down at the newspaper stand.

On the cover was something about New Orleans being under water. I was shocked. I couldn’t believe this happened. I called my friend to see if he heard the news.

He laughed when I explained what I learned. He said, “Yeah that happened a week ago everyone knows about it. How have you not heard about that?”

For a moment I was stunned. How could I not know the biggest event of the year? How could I go through my day without hearing anyone talk about it or see a commercial for the news flash on the screen?

I decided that I should have some connection to the world and not completely bury my head in the sand. Since then I have made sure to limit my exposure to the news but still try to keep up with the biggest headlines.

But today this seems difficult. I can’t pull up anything without getting emotion-filled reporting. I can’t get away from bias, from whatever political party happens to control that news outlet.

Every article seems to try to sway us to feel one way or the other. It poses everything as an example of how horrible the world is.

In systems thinking, we know that all systems have pros and cons, good and bad. The news is positioned to profit from the bad parts of our world.

Maybe this is why I was so much happier and improving at a greater rate when I ignored the latest events and focused on what I could do to improve.

I’m not sure I want to completely shut out the news today. I want to make sure I know when the governor closes local businesses or there is a local outbreak of COVID. But I have to work to not get sucked in. It is difficult to know when it is happening but the end result is the same – feelings of anguish, disgust, and fear.