Source: Ulrike Mai/Pixabay When I examine global trends over the past hundred years, I’m heartened by many positive improvements in most parts of the world, especially related to life expectancy and human rights.
In my own lifetime, much has changed for the better. When I was born:
- Discrimination was legal. Then, when I was three years old, the Civil Rights Act was passed, which ended segregation in public places and banned employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.
- There was no Clean Air Act or Clean Water Act. Then, in the 1970s, both were passed by Congress, and the air and water in the U.S. are now cleaner than when I was a child.
- More than half of the people in the world lived in extreme poverty. Today about 11% of people do.
- Women in the U.S. were only just beginning to aspire to have careers. Today, more girls attend college than boys, and around the globe—even in countries where women are still largely disenfranchised—the great majority of girls go to school.
- LGBTQ+ people were mostly closeted. Today, there is marriage equality in the U.S. and in many other countries.
- A relatively small percentage of people cared about the plight of animals. Now, according to a recent Gallup poll, most believe animals should be protected from abuse.
Because I spend my days working for greater justice, a regenerative planet, and a humane future for both people and nonhuman animals, I’m acutely aware of how far we have to go, but I am buoyed by these positive changes. They remind me that we can and do make progress.
Recently, however, I’ve found myself struggling to maintain my optimism.
The growing threat of catastrophic effects from climate change; the increase in nationalism, polarization, and xenophobia; the ability to easily falsify information and then spread it as truth; the reality of living during the sixth great extinction, and more have combined to diminish my generally healthy, evidence-based optimism.
The less optimistic I feel, the more discipline it takes to work diligently for change. This can become a dangerous feedback loop, because if we don’t work for change, we may then feel more despair. As Joan Baez once said, “Action is the antidote to despair,” but despair can greatly hinder the ability to act.
Where do pessimism and despair about the world come from? For some people, these feelings originate from lived experiences of poverty, violence, bigotry, illness, and/or abuse. For others, like myself, who live in relatively stable, privileged, and safe situations, these feelings often come from exposure to news coupled with innate empathy.
Despite the toll the news takes on us, we may be inexorably drawn to information about terrifying natural disasters far removed from us; horrific cruelties perpetrated on people and nonhuman animals across the globe; the latest repugnant tweets and mean-spirited diatribes on Facebook. Yet, even though we may struggle emotionally with the overwhelming and relentless onslaught of bad and frightening news, we may feel unmoored by the thought of taking a break from the media.
If this describes you, you may benefit from some news-coping strategies.
Before offering these strategies, however, it’s important to contextualize the weirdness of global media. For almost all of humanity’s existence on Earth, we had no way of ever knowing what was happening even 100 miles away from us, let alone on every continent. Whereas ancestral humans used to live in groups of fewer than 100, and the news revolved around who and what we knew firsthand, we now have the means to know about the plight of billions of people and animals all over the world, as well as the failing ecosystems that support life.
Source: Gerd Altmann/Pixabay News is now available to us every moment of every day, and a competitive media market, which is eager to grab our attention and cognizant that bad news sells, manipulates us to tune in around the clock.
Those who strive most conscientiously to be engaged global citizens and changemakers may feel even more deeply compelled to follow the news, perhaps even obsessively. They are drawn to know because only through knowledge can they make a meaningful difference in a globalized, interconnected world. Yet knowing takes its toll, perpetuating its own psychologically dangerous feedback loop.
Despite all this, there are ways to find balance and build a healthy relationship with our media habits. Here are six strategies:
- Adopt a solutionary mindset. Solutionaries are strategic, creative, critical and systems thinkers who find great satisfaction in uncovering connections between complex systems and working with others to develop solutions to challenges that are good for everyone. Developing a solutionary practice and surrounding yourself with solutionaries leads not only to positive changes in the world but also to psychological well-being. To strengthen your solutionary skills, you can download this free Solutionary Guidebook (written for teachers but also useful for those who want to learn an effective solutionary process).
- Establish a news day of rest and give yourself at least one day a week during which you do some of the following: spend time outside in nature; gather with friends and/or family; exercise; play games, make music, write poetry, dance, and/or do art projects; attend a community event such as a play, concert, service, or dance performance. Consider this your time to reset. The news will be waiting for you tomorrow, so make sure to build a weekly practice to ensure your stamina to absorb and address it productively.
- Unless it is good news (see suggestion #5), avoid the news after dinner or set a timer to limit your exposure. Going to bed with a full stomach isn’t a great idea, and neither is going to bed with a full head of bad news. Let sleep be as restful as possible by preparing for it with evening experiences that settle the mind rather than agitate it.
- Refuse to engage in social media debates and conflict. Not only are these rarely productive; they are often deeply destructive. Instead, engage your solutionary mindset. If you read threads that become increasingly insulting and polarized, turn your attention to the original issue that sparked the thread. What’s the actual problem? How could it be solved? What would it take for differing perspectives and various stakeholders to be heard, and for people across a spectrum of beliefs to collaborate? Even if you don’t personally work to solve that particular problem, allow yourself the detachment and space to see the whole picture and think like a solutionary. Doing so will be energizing, positive, and lead to other ideas for solving the issues you care most about.
- Subscribe to a positive news source like the Solutions Journal and follow social media such as Yes to Positive Social Change Now.
- Keep the long view in mind and remind yourself that positive change has happened and will continue to happen (as described at the beginning of this post). Choose to be part of solutionary change.
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Do UV Tanning Beds Really Prolong Lifespan? Paying attention to our media habits and disrupting them in positive ways is a form of self-care that also leads directly to greater efficacy as you address the issues and problems you are most passionate about.