What’s Your NEWS? What Are Your Tidings? What Are You Mushrooming?

As we leave the Holiday Season and enter the New Year, I offer you NEWS and Tidings of happiness, joy, love and peace for 2017 and beyond.

This blog about NEWS and Tidings is connected to my addiction to NEWS.

Contrary to an urban myth, NEWS is it NOT an acronym for North, East, West and South. NEWS can be traced back to the 14th century as a plural for the adjective “new” or “new thing” making a leap from the Old French “nouveau,” meaning “new.” Prior to the 14th century, people used the word “tidings,” the “announcement of an event.”

Why is NEWS more negative versus positive?

I’m sure you have heard the expression “if it bleeds, it reads”. This expression connects with the top NEWS stories of the past 25 years that include crime, elections, environmental disasters, famine, politics, terrorism and war.

This past week, I only glanced at the NEWS two to three times during the week, via the iPhone Apps of BBC, CBC, CNN and Fox NEWS. This is versus four to five times a day previously. Believe it or not, that is 12 times versus 140 times if you count / multiply out the number of Apps. As of this writing, I have not looked at the NEWS in three days.

You might wonder why I look at the BBC, CBC, CNN and Fox NEWS Apps. I’m Canadian, so the CBC has that covered. I was born in the UK, so the BBC has that covered, and I work with USA clients so CNN and Fox have that covered.

My News Addiction

I’ve been thinking about my NEWS addiction, especially noticing how I felt being away from the NEWS after two to three days. After seven days I have little interest in looking at the NEWS.

Tracing the path of my NEWS addiction, I noticed it mushroomed from the 6 o’clock CBS Evening NEWS with Walter Cronkite. It led to 24/7/365 NEWS on an infinite amount of global networks. Ending with the social media of Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

Watching the 6 o’clock CBS Evening NEWS, to find out if we were going to be safe in the world, was more important in our household than being Sunday Catholics.

In 1962, we watched Walter Cronkite talk about the Cuban Missile Crisis. I remember asking my father, “What should I do if I’m walking home from school and an atomic bomb goes off?” My father said, “Crawl into a ditch,” the basic strategy of the time.

Honestly, we would have been far better off going to church rather than watching the 6 o’clock CBS Evening NEWS.

I’ve matured to understand that given my parents, who went through the Second World War in England were inclined to tap into an outside source like the NEWS. They wanted the NEWS to tell them if they were going to be safe in the world.

They sat down at 6 o’clock to worship a false idol, with the expectation that this outside source, this false idol,  would meet their psychological Unmet Need of safety. This was a waste of time, creating a compounding negative effect. One can never feel safe watching the NEWS.

Which brings me to the questions:

What’s Your NEWS? What Are Your Tidings? What Are You Mushrooming?

Are you unconsciously and unnecessarily mushrooming published negative NEWS yet again on social media?

Have you ever stopped to consider why you revisit the NEWS with your family and friends as well as on social media?

The reason we do this, the reason we unconsciously and unnecessarily mushroom published negative NEWS, is because we don’t feel safe. In an attempt to feel better, we unconsciously try to offload our emotional pain, our anxiety and fear, onto someone else. We do this because we don’t feel safe in the world.

The truth is, every one of us was born infinite and our salvation is guaranteed. All we have to do is remember to remember the truth. In the absence of the truth, we will not feel safe. We will unconsciously and unnecessarily turn to an outside source (device, App) to medicate how we feel.

Which brings me to Millennials; the generation who has grown up with devices and Apps. Look for a follow-up blog about Baby Boomers judging Misunderstood Millennials, the generation who has, more than any other generation, unconsciously turned to outside sources to medicate how they feel.

May you continue to experience happiness, joy, love and peace for 2017 and beyond.