Want To Be Happy? Avoid The News

As long as you don’t mind not being able to participate in any conversation about current affairs I have the prescription for happiness.  Do not watch, listen or read anything that has to do with the news.  Should you choose to “bury your head in the sand” you can avoid the reality of the times we live in and live each day as if the glass was more than half full.

Pardon my use of phrases to make a point but rarely can you make it through the first 15 minutes of a TV newscast without uttering to yourself or someone else, “there is no hope.”  Maybe there are some parts of the country where that is not the case but as one who watches New York and national news on a nightly basis I wonder why I truly put myself through this agony.  Shootings, stabbings, drugs and other acts of violence hit you like a ton of bricks and then comes the latest on what’s happening in Washington and it’s like getting in the octagon with Frankie Edgar and your hands are tied.  (If you don’t understand this then take my word it would not be a pleasant experience.)

What it does do is allow you to thoroughly enjoy the stories that are upbeat and have a happy ending.  48 hours after we thought a 9-year old girl had been abducted and killed in upstate New York she was found alive and apparently well.  My wife and I both felt this sense of relief like we knew the little girl and it was almost a joyous occasion.  That’s because we have learned to expect the worst in these situations.

Again if you don’t mind “being in the dark” on what’s happening in the world today just avoid all forms of media.  That’s not hard to do is it?