Should we avoid bad news in an attempt to reduce stress? I was asking myself this question as in some self help programs this seems to be what is advised.
Turn off the television and the radio and don’t read newspapers. You will feel a lot better when you do this, is what some of these programs suggest.
Although this might be true, to me, it sounds a bit like turning off the lights so we cannot see the mess we are living in.
News whether good or bad is either true or untrue or there is a degree of truth in it and a degree of untruth. Your emotional response to it determines whether news has a good or bad influence on you.
I don’t belief there is much benefit in avoiding things. When you don’t want to look at something or listen to something in order to feel good you tent to weaken yourself. Reality is as it is. When you try to avoid it you are telling yourself that you are afraid of it.
We live in a world of opposites. This is how we learn. We need to know the existing situation in order to improve it towards a more ideal situation.
I don’t have a television. Not because I want to avoid bad news. I want to get things done. I want to accomplish things. I found television too much of a distraction. Just my personal opinion.
More important is the degree of truth in the news but that is not always easy to verify. We just need to realize that there is no need to become emotionally involved with information that we cannot check the validity of. The same goes for bad situations we cannot control. Shit happens, you know, it is part of the dual universe we live in.
But there is another aspect that we need to take into account when we look at the effects that bad news can have on our well being.
It has to do with the way the news is brought to us. Too many times news media are being used to make us believe things for a reason. Many times there is a hidden agenda behind news items, especially when they are being repeated for several days on all possible channels.
When this happens you can be almost certain that they want to scare you so you will accept solutions that fit their agenda.
You will see this happening much more in the main stream media (radio and television) than in alternative media outlets on the internet.
I think it is of some importance to know about this. Don’t just accept the story from the main stream media. Investigate it by checking several different media outlets.