I cut out the news during Covid. I have never gone back and I am much happier. I am able to focus more on what is important to me and what is in front of me…my family and my community. One of the health bloggers wrote this about the news today. It really sums up how I feel about it. I have chosen to protect my heart…
Take the recent tragedy in Texas, the latest in a long line.
Because it's not just a tragedy in Texas, or the last one in New York, and so on down the line of all the tragedies in this country. There are tragedies occurring everywhere, all the time, across the entire world. There are things happening as we speak that would make your heart break.
But before you make the tragedy your entire world, before you start putting yourself in the position of the people to whom it actually happened by watching videos and reading accounts and learning about the lives of those who died, consider that what you're doing is historically and evolutionarily novel.
Until telecommunications, we were physically barred from knowing about all the tragedies occurring all over the world. If we were lucky (or unlucky), we might hear about something from the next town or county over. When we did hear about something tragic happening, it was usually involving someone we knew or an area or population physically close to us. We had to get involved. We had to take it to heart.
Now? Now we feel things that happen two thousand miles away, and I don't think it's good for us.
I'm not saying not to watch the news or follow current events. I'm just saying you should take a step back and realize what you're asking yourself to handle. Especially now, when news coverage is so vivid, so constant. It's not just like reading something in a history book—where this event happened to that person. When you engage with the news, there are twists and turns, there are questions and answers that only lead to more questions. You get sucked into an evolving plot line.
What I'm saying is take care of yourself. Don't expend too much energy or give too much of your heart to something you're not prepared for. And I'd argue that very few (if any) of us are prepared to handle the burden of constant, unceasing tragedy.
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