1-Minute Wisdom: News Outlets Feed Your Worry Box
This is part of my blog series Practical Self-Help for Introspective People.
Hey, friends!
Here’s today’s idea: consider what news outlets fill your worry box. Do they fill your box with things you control? Or things you don’t?
For example, in March 2020, dread overran my worry box. News about Covid-19, and Trump’s handling of it, devoured my attention. Daily press briefings destroyed my focus. I was totally plugged in. (And totally wired!)
This dread disrupted my work, writing, and sleep. I found myself in a funk, filled with foreboding feelings. And apprehension and angst and agitation and anxiety morphed into quiet alarm.
Until I quit. All of it. Twitter. Reddit. And those “essential” press briefings.
Once unplugged, my spirits lifted. I worried less and less about a pandemic I couldn’t control.
Take action
Peek in your worry box. What’s scampering around in there? Ask each worry, “Why are you here? What news outlet feeds you?”
Worries are hungry critters, needing constant nourishment. So stop feeding worries you can’t control.
Cut ties with news outlets that nourish them. Tell them goodbye. Adéu. Au revoir. And auf Wiedersehen.
Lastly, remember the words of Roy T. Bennett:
Instead of worrying about what you cannot control, shift your energy to what you can create.
Thanks to Diane Callahan and Todd Ericksen for reading drafts of this!