The World is Ending?

The world is ending!
The world is ending!
Everything is downward trending.
Governments are overspending.
Great disaster coming soon -
Blizzard, earthquake, flood, typhoon.
Enemies and monsters loom.
Prepare for our impending doom. 

What do we do?
What do we do?
It's terrible,
Just read the news.
Crime and scandal,
Social issues,
All the adults will shake in their shoes.
Plastic swords up,
At the ready.
Fill the water guns.
Hold 'em steady.
Barricade ourselves with pillows.
Curl in a ball like armadillos. 

The world is ending!
The world is ending!
Hackers hacking,
Malware sending,
Viruses and memes descending,
Even computers need defending.
Solar flares and comets crashing,
Earth is bound to take a bashing.
All the glaciers melting, cracking.
Angry polar bears attacking. 

What do we do?
What do we do?
Hide the pets and piggy bank too.
Let's give in to world's-end blues.
Or maybe,
Read a bit less news.

-B.C. Byron

Something I’ve come to realize about news is that it makes money by pushing strong emotions. Fear is a strong emotion that glues ears to a radio and eyes to a screen, leaving us hanging on every sentence and driving our mouse fingers to click and click for more. Anger is another strong emotion the news uses to pull us in. With more and more news reporting websites coming online everyday, reporting gets more and more fearful and angry it seems. Unfortunately, happy and positive feelings get less clicks and don’t seem to get humans all fired up, even though these emotions can easily be just as powerful inside us.

It’s important to stay informed about the world around us, but too much negative news fills us with dread and has us wanting to hide behind our pillows like the kid in this poem. If it starts to feel like the world is ending, take a break from social media and screens. Also, it helps to put things in perspective with some numbers. If the news says there were 10 robberies in your state today, that means there were millions of homes where robberies didn’t happen. The reporters didn’t think you’d find that interesting but it sure gives peace to the mind to think about all the places and people that aren’t experiencing disaster. Even better would be to shift your focus to how you can help that unfortunate small number of people that were affected by something bad. The world is filled to the brim with good happenings all the time. The world also has a scattering of opportunities to help others – all the time.

Turn off the news today, write down a list of good things you saw this week, then go out and experience the good things for yourself. Despite what screens are telling us there is a ton of good to see, and it’s way more interesting than gloomy doomsayers.