Yesterday I had an email from someone I have met once sharing an upsetting and frightening news story from across the pond. This person thought that, seeing as she had come across the story, it might be useful for people she knew to have access to the information too.
I won't go in to detail about what the story was. It is rather irrelevant. But it was a typical scare story intended to worry mothers of young children (in this case) but providing absolutely no suggestion about what we should do to prevent such a fate befalling our children.
It's not that I don't want to know what is going on in the world. But every day there are millions of tonnes of fatuous news stories created by journalists trying to fill airtime and newspapers, here today, gone tomorrow stories disguised at public information.
During the height of the recession it was the same. I tried to sell various interviews with people like Martha Lane Fox and Deborah Meaden to the newspapers, in order to balance all the negative press. My interviewees, all successful business people, had more rounded views about the economy and the chances of businesses surviving than those we were reading every day and hearing on the news.
Did one newspaper print the interviews? No. I have sold stories before so it wasn't a judgement on my interviewing skills. Simply a judgement on my news sense. At that time, the papers didn't want positive stories.
Anyway, I don't mind journalists doing their job. But I tend to source my news from places I trust. I actually meet people who are in business, who are working in different fields, who have real experience,and I talk to them. During the Summer I worked with someone from one of the large pharma companies so I asked about the Swine Flu drugs and got a far more rounded picture than from the media hysteria.
With so much information out there now it is important that we close down some of the channels through which this negative energy enters our lives. I am not only talking about news. We need to take care of ourselves. And sometimes that means keeping negative influences, whether they be the news, people who treat us badly, ignorant relatives or even bad lighting in our offices, to an absolute minimum.
Of course, unpleasant and difficult information does come our way. We do have to put up with people who annoy us occasionally. And the bulb in my office is going to flicker until the new batch arrives in the post! But where possible it is not a crime to keep negative energy out of your life. It might be one of the secrets to a happy life.
Blaire - I completely agree with your post! I am sick to death of hearing scare stories about health, children, the economy, all of it! I wonder if on the economic front it doesn't all just perpetuate itself. The economy is bad, so we cut back accordingly, even people who have secure jobs and don't have to scrimp and save are worried. You tell em.
Posted by: Jennifer | October 27, 2009 at 03:21 PM