Rose Tint My World
I read about the Rose-Coloured Roundup on one of my news listservs. It’s happy news stories, I was promised, and only happy news stories.
My first reaction was sign me up. I like happy news stories. I’m more likely to tell Josh about something funny or heartwarming I read on the Internet. I don’t click on click-baity news, though I certainly absorb the headlines as I scroll past.
But my second reaction was maybe not. We need to stop thinking about news as negative or positive. Isn’t it just… the important facts we need to know? Shouldn’t we just stick to presenting the news and stop trying to manipulate it in one direction or the other? I refuse to read inflammatory articles that are trying to make me feel scared, so why should I read the opposite; something trying to manipulate me into feeling good? And… all is not right in the world. Isn’t it a bit ostrich-like to subscribe to a roundup that is going to curate only the happy news?
But we live in a world where 11 people died in a synagogue yesterday. Where people are sent bombs and people are shot in grocery stores.
Does it make me feel good? I don’t know. It doesn’t erase the rest of the news. It just brings a little breathing space in a very tumultuous world.
6 comments
I think we do need to be intentional about what we put in our bodies and minds. And I also agree that it can serve us well to intentionally sit with things without judgment (not INSTEAD of evaluating but IN ADDITION to evaluating). There are so many heavy things going on now in my world and in The World that it does make sense to add in some lightness.
Sending you love. And I know you are loving me back.
I believe in being well informed and paying attention to the news. But I also believe in self-care, and giving ourselves a break now & then 🙂 — especially when the news has been as relentlessly bad/sad as it has been lately.
So I see nothing wrong with seeking some happy news stories to help balance/ lighten the mood a little — as Lori LL says above, not exclusively, not instead of but in addition to the news stories we see, hear & read every day anyway.
For the record — I get a weekly “good news” roundup newsletter from the New York Times myself. 🙂
https://www.nytimes.com/newsletters/good-news
P.S. Also sending love to you & yours. I know you don’t live in Pittsburgh, but you were in my thoughts yesterday.
Yesterday was awful. A fellow blogger lives there and she’s been reeling from all of it. All of it senseless. All of it the product of toxic rhetoric from political leaders and extreme news sources.
I agree with both the Loris about being mindful about the positive. We sorely need it. It would be one thing to solely focus on this, but I think the negative has completely taken over for the agenda of a few.
Thanks for the link.
I agree with everyone about being mindful. I get a good newsletter every morning and it helps me start my day feeling optimistic. There’s so much sadness in the world and I’m not ignoring it but I can’t let it weigh me down without at least trying to balance the scale.
Most of the stories that come across my feed lately are opinion pieces disguised as news, so I feel very comfortable in skimming the headlines and moving on. I don’t think it’s ever a bad thing to step away and refresh your mind. The world is not going to fall apart faster because you stopped paying attention for a minute. (It’s just when it turns to apathy and complete avoidance that it becomes a problem.)
I was thinking of you this weekend too – I hope that your place of worship feels safe for your family. It’s supposed to be a haven, and I hate that people are trying to take that away.