Don’t let the News Depress You! Find More Humor In Your Life.
“Everybody’s always drumming on about the future but I’m not letting it interfere with my laughs.” - John Lennon
You can really get depressed by watching the news. Very seldom do the headlines ever report something positive. Good news seems to be reserved for the fluff pieces, if they have time for it. You can miss two or three days of news, and with the exception of a major tragedy, the news is the same. Someone was shot during a robbery, another person was killed in a car accident, a politician is in trouble and there will always be a major drug bust. The names, addresses and dates may change, but the subjects don’t. When ever a reporter says “the index shows…..” you know the economy is going bad. Even when the economy is going good they are reporting it to go bad soon.
We have created a society of cynical, worrisome, negative thinking people. There have always been complaints that the press doesn’t report enough good news, but the truth is we feed off negativity. Ratings don’t go up when the headline reads “Corporate America did something good for the consumer.” The Nielsen ratings sky rocket when we have a corporate scandal like Enron and what is even better for the networks is when there is government corruption.
It doesn’t matter who is in the White House, Democrat or Republican, the Washington Press Corp. is going to find some sort of scandal, government corruption, or indicators show the president’s popularity is low.
So how do we get away from the negativity? Don’t focus your life around the daily news. Remember we may not be able to control what is on the news or what is happening around the world today, but we can control our own lives. Most of what we see on CNN and FOX News doesn’t really affect our daily lives unless we let it. Try missing the news once in awhile, it will still be there when ever you need to know what is going on in the world. Find positive things to read about and ADD MORE HUMOR to your life.
Instead of spending that half hour watching your local news switch to a station that has a sitcom running during that time. You will probably digest your dinner better laughing at an episode of “Friends” or “That Seventies Show” rather than looking at death and violence on the news.
Make a point of putting more humor in your life. Watch more comedies, read the comic strip in the paper, look at the humorous forwards from friends and coworkers don’t let the new get you down. Unless you can actually go out and change what is happening on the news don’t get too caught up in it. Laugh more. Turn off the news and sit around with your family sharing humor, playing fun games, or whatever you do to put more laughter in your life.
It is amazing how the news anchor will show all this death and destruction and at the end of thirty straight minutes of it they will smile and say “Have a nice day.”
Have a nice day and don’t take the news too seriously.