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Pay attention
Keeping apprised of current events is a virtue. Understanding what’s happening in your home, your country, the world. Understanding how everything fits together and being able to speak intelligently about it.
For me, following the news is an important part of my day. Whether I pick up a paper, tune into the radio or look through news sites online, I feel the need to stay up-to-date on what’s happening.
This is a habit instilled from a young age. Watching parents read the paper, bringing news items to school to discuss as ongoing classroom assignments.
For some, this is a foolish practice. There are those who argue the news is bad for you; an endless parade of shootings, bombings, people unwittingly competing for being the worst in the world, distorting our world view and invading our nightmares. Understandably, it would be logical to conclude that we’re better off neglecting the news.
I’ve often ignored this advice. To me, understanding current events is too important. But sometimes my resolve weakens.
In Alberta, a mother and child were brutally murdered, allegedly by a man who had already been in the justice system.
In the U.S., police are killing people of colour and people of colour are killing police and a perfect storm is brewing as a racist, xenophobic, misogynistic businessman inches closer to taking the seat as leader of the entire country. The mass shooting in Florida has already been all but forgotten amidst the chaos.
In Europe, devastating violence is spilling over from an even more violent regime of the angry and the zealous in the Middle East, and the body counts grow higher. Axes in trains in Germany, bombs in the airport in Turkey, and oh, Nice! By the time this is published, some other, similar random attack will likely have been committed.
In Pakistan, a woman was murdered by her own brother for bringing shame on her family.
The list goes painfully on.
It’s a tempting proposition to turn off the radio, put aside the paper, close the computer and just get some peace. At some point, the news highlights so much evil, it seems impossible to live in such a world.
And perhaps it is better for our health to avoid the jarring headlines.
But the headlines are not the world. They are the storms, the disruptive elements in our lives that can shake us to the core and force us to think. They tie into other stories and help us form a fuller picture of the world around us.
It’s up to the consumers of news to determine how it will be consumed. The headlines are there, whether they are telling of sensational scandals, corruption and gratuitous violence, reporting on sports and business or just updating citizens on issues that will affect them.
We can take in those soul-crushing headlines or we can read on—after a moment of quiet mourning, or at least empathy—and begin a discussion, think critically and try to understand why things are the way they are.
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