We turn to the news we like. These days people are glued to their phones, addicted to instant gratification of real news, fake news, liberal news, conservative news, social news and so on. As the year winds down, each day is like waking up to a deeper nightmare. Is it really that bad? The constant frenzy of "breaking news" surely takes a toll on our health and happiness. Not too long ago, the news was a evening TV program, a weekly magazine, a daily paper.
Our dad knows a thing or two about living long and well. Here's his routine: He wakes up early each morning and walks outside for the newspaper. He drinks his coffee while he reads it, then throws it in the recycling. He has breakfast and walks on the treadmill. He turns on his computer maybe once a day to read the blog, check for email and look at the Colorado Springs Gazette online.
This is a poem Mary Oliver wrote a few years ago and seems especially relevant.
The Morning Paper
Read one newspaper daily (the morning edition
is the best
for by evening you know that you at least
have lived through another day)
and let the disasters, the unbelievable
yet approved decisions,
soak in.
I don't need to name the countries,
ours among them.
What keeps us from falling down, our faces
to the ground; ashamed, ashamed, ashamed?
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