“One more sad story’s one more than I can stand
Just once how I’d like to see the headline say
“Not much to print today, can’t find nothin’ bad to say”
~ Rory Michael Bourke, Charlie Black, Tommy Rocco
Good Morning!
On my walk…
The bluebirds were flying between the field and a fence, eating worms and appearing to have a great time.
A butterfly landed on the still-purple coneflower for a morning snack in the warm morning sun.
The man driving the dump truck for another trip to fill its load smiled and waved at me as he does most days.
Once home….
The dog thumped his tail against the floor, rolling around scratching his back, and he really did look as if he were smiling as he wiped his face with his paws.
Upbeat piano tunes came from the small cd player.
The bold aroma of coffee wafted through the air pleasantly greeting my nose.
It has been a beautiful morning here. I’m making a choice to give myself a little good news each day, and it makes a difference. It doesn’t make my debts disappear or the car repairs get marked off the to-do list, but it sure does give me a break from a lot of bad news. As Anne Murray has sung many times, one more sad story’s one more than I can stand some days, and after watching people in the world endure tragedy after tragedy, I just need a little good news today — I bet you do, too.
“Everything in moderation,” is a good piece of advice. If you eat too much bread, drink too much coffee, or even exercise too much, it isn’t healthy, and when something begins to occupy our thinking too much, it’s probably time to make some changes. I don’t know about you, but enough bad news is enough for me. For several years, I didn’t watch the news. In the past year, there has been so much unusually bad news in my country that I find I can’t stop going back to see what will happen next — like slowing to look when passing a wreck.
Research shows that too much bad news causes people to be either overly sensitive or desensitized, almost numb, neither of which is healthy. The truth is that we are in control of what we watch and hear. Let me repeat that: YOU ARE IN CONTROL of what you choose to put into your mind each day, just as you get to choose what foods you’ll put into your body. The key, then, is to find a balance.
Balance means stopping the prideful announcement that you don’t know what’s going on in the world because you neither watch, nor read, nor listen to the news. It also means that you need to stop sitting in front of the 24-hour news channel or reading every news update you can find and get together with friends or take a walk in the sunshine. We have a responsibility to know if there are things happening in the world that we might be able to help with and we have a responsibility to ourselves and to our families to take care of everyday items and relationships. Find the balance.
Choosing to pretend bad things aren’t happening would be silly, but allowing their presence to destroy us and sometimes our relationships is even worse. One more sad story’s one more than I can stand, so let’s each do our part to bring a little good news into the world wherever we are. There’s another storm on the horizon — they need some good news.
Please share YOUR good news! (or your way of balancing the good and bad news in your own life.)
Thanks for reading.