177companies getting away with scams that victimize
people cruelly. If there’s a report on politics, it features
the most venomous attacks between two partisans.
The goal of the news today is stimulation. It’s to take
us on an emotional roller-coaster ride. It’s a “good” pro-
gram if we have been enraged by one story, saddened
by another, and amused by at the third.
Is it any wonder that by programming our minds
with this gross and frightening information all day and
into the night, we end up a little less motivated? Is it
hard to understand a certain slippage in our optimism?
Going on a news fast is a refreshing cure for this
problem. You can do it for one day a week, to begin with,
and then get back into the tabloid shows the next day if
you have to. Once you start fasting, you’ll find your en-
tire mood picking up.
“But what about staying informed?” you ask. There
are many ways to stay fully informed. The Internet has
wonderful, thoughtful sites. In fact, it is far better to be
informed intellectually than to be informed emotion-
ally. There are weekly and monthly magazines as well
as e-zines that do a fine job of informing us and giving
us a calm, thoughtful, overall perspective of the news.
Don’t worry about missing out on important news.
Really big news, like a war, a natural disaster, or an
assassination will get to you just as quickly during a
news fast as it would if you were watching the news.
Begin to experiment with news fasts today. Go on a
short one at first, and then extend the periods of time
as your system allows. When you do return to the news,
be totally conscious of just what the show is trying to do
to you. Don’t passively take it in as if what you are see-
ing is really “the way it is.” It’s not. They’re not going to
tell you how many thousands of planes landed safely
today.
Go on a news fast