Consider a Media Blackout

Ahhhhh, it's quiet here in my brain. Peaceful. Why? Because I am late in Day 3 of a media blackout.

What's a media blackout? It's a practice of fasting from news. For me, it means not watching the TV news, not reading the newspaper or news-magazines, and especially not reading news websites and blogs.

Having worked a presidential campaign in 2004, I am a bit of a political news junkie. And with the economy doing its tricks, it's been hard to turn my head away from the news. But when you look at it closely, you start to see a few things about "news":

1) It's mostly bad

2) It's mostly things out of my control

3) It's mostly things that don't help me to know

4) It mostly makes me anxious, sad, or depressed

So I am off it. Not sure how long I will do it. But I can tell you my head already feels like a much quieter, more peaceful place to be. And I've suddenly got more time on my hands (added benefit) to do things that I can control, that are good and creative, that make me happy.

I am off to go do them now. All the best, Your Grateful Guy

Watching Your Media Intake

Hi folks,

Well, this post was oddly inspired by watching M. Night Shymalan's movie "The Happening" - which was a good scary movie and freaked my wife and I out a bit. I don't think I'm giving away anything by saying the protagonist happens upon someone who doesn't have TV, radio or internet. The woman has cut herself off from the news of the world, and in doing so, there are pluses and minuses. One of the pluses is the peaceful state she can be in.

I was speaking with my wife's uncle on Thanksgiving. He's from Spokane, and I asked him how the economy was there. His answer: it would be OK if people would stop watching the news. Apparently the local economy is fine, but people are freaking out when they see the national news about the bailout, etc etc.

These lead me to re-consider something I did at the start of the Iraq war - a media diet. For a week, I stopped watching news, surfing news sites on the web, and reading newspapers. Instead, I read books, I gardened, I exercised, I meditated and prayed. And it was really great. My anxiety level went down and my experience of Peace increased greatly.

In these times, where we can't control the national economy ourselves, it might be a good idea to reconsider your media diet. Instead of taking in bad news, keep your head down, keep moving forward in your practice, keep feeding your own soul and doing good in the world. Focus on what you can control and what you can do, and do it.

I sincerely wish you the best!
Your Grateful Guy