Does It Affect Me?

I used to be a news addict but I’ve been able to tame that habit to two emails per day with a news digest and having my news filtered through comedy based shows. When these shows are on hiatus, I feel even more peace.

What I’ve begun to think about more is whether a particular story can actually effect me or whether I’m consuming the news for entertainment purposes. I think it’s the latter more than anything.

Most news covered in the media has no bearing on us. Yet, we spend lots of energy on worrying about things that don’t happen. At the same time, being self-absorbed means we can’t act as humans towards larger problems, like climate change.

When it comes to keeping up, especially with news, it’s not FOMO, its FOM something that can affect us — that we won’t know in time to act. However, it might be better than we continually think about preparing for those things that can make a difference when we need it like emergency preparedness, getting adjusted occasionally to discomfort (e.g. not eating for a day or two), or focusing on long term.

Better we work on things we can actually control.