It’s Monday! Let’s face it, for most of us, Mondays are tough. And we all know that watching the news is incredibly depressing. So let’s reduce our exposure to negativity and deem today, “No news is good news Monday.”
For some of you, today’s challenge may be nearly impossible, but for me, it’s pretty easy. First, because I live in South Korea and I speak very little Korean, I’m not bombarded with information (at least not information I can understand) everywhere I turn. Second, I’ve been avoiding the news for years, so I’m really good at it.
I know it’s considered bad form to be uninformed, but to be truly informed, I believe, one would have to read a wide array of newspapers with varying agendas, ranging from conservative to liberal, and imagine the truth somewhere in the middle. But who has time for that?
Besides, when I lived in Southern California and watched the news all the time, I wasn’t really informed then, either. Instead, I listened to pretty people telling me to be worried about this or scared of that. Rarely did I hear a positive report. And the positive reports were usually meaningless. Yes, Kate Middleton’s sister is hot, but is that really news? Rarely (maybe never) did I hear neutral facts. Even the weather was sensationalized. You know something’s wrong when an inch of rain merits the headline “Stormwatch!”
So I turned off the news and now, when something newsworthy is happening in the world, I hear about it from friends, then seek out credible information from news sources I value. They’re not easy to find.
As I type this, I am aware that something big seems to be happening with the U.S. Maybe it’s good news. Maybe it’s bad news. Either way, it’ll still be there tomorrow … hopefully with less hype distorting it. (See my Day 2: Follow Up post to see how the secret was revealed.)
So here’s my proposition: Turn off the crappy news that only makes you feel like crap and spend that time researching something important. Learn about an issue that impacts you and that you can impact. Inform yourself. Then, share that information with others. That’s the kind of news we all could use – which leads us to tomorrow’s challenge: Google for knowledge.
Thanks for joining me! I hope you’re all enjoying the challenge so far!
Untitled Adventure 