The Power of News
If you think about all the negative headlines we read or hear about in the news it’s no wonder many people can get discouraged. Can you imagine if animals were able to produce and read their own newspapers?
Let’s look at an imaginary scenario.
First let’s imagine that animals start off by reading about what is happening to other animals in their village and, slowly over time, they obtain have global coverage, like we humans have, so that they can read about all of the animals in the rest of the word. Imagine for another second that animals thought about things the same way as humans.
In other words, they start hearing about the bad things that are happening to animals, ex. the animal that was killed while trying to cross the street, or the animals that are being killed by humans for food, etc. Over time many of the animals get depressed and start withdrawing from their usual routine. This wouldn’t work well for the animal kingdom would it? It would fall apart. Yet this is precisely how many humans feel after reading much of the bad news that is out there.
What can we do about it?
Let me provide a couple of tips.
Don’t constantly bombard yourself with news. It’s certainly reasonable to stay informed but don’t inundate yourself. Take a break from the news every couple of days. Don’t worry: the world won’t come to an end.
When you read about a news headline that upsets you or instills fear, try to analyze and see the larger message. Is their anything you can learn from this news story? Is there a healthier way of interpreting this news story or putting in the proper perspective?
Complete a web search on the opposite of what you just read. In other words, if you have read about someone who has been killed, read about someone whose life has been spared or saved. It’s important for you to have a balanced perspective. Only certain items are put into the news. Bad news usually attracts more viewers than good news. So by watching the news you are bound to get more of the bad news many times – or at best the news that deemed important by the people in networks who decide what’s important. What do you think they’ll decide is more important?
