So about a month ago I stopped watching the news…and even listening to the news. I decided this when they started showing extreme videos of dogs being abused and constant stories about abortions and child abuse. I quit cold turkey and I am not looking back!

This guy says it perfectly

“I don’t watch the news because I don’t want violence and crime and fear and hatred pushed into my living room every single night. To me it’s a total no-brainer. But from what I can tell, I’m in the minority here – if not in thought, then at least in action”

Snippit of his article

I see two major problems with watching the news on a regular basis. And yes, I’m aware of how sweeping a generalization that sounds, but unless you can show me an easy way to cut out the bad from newscasts and keep only the good, I’ll have to stick with it.

It poisons your mind.
How many times does someone walk outside and get murdered in the city of Chicago in a given year? 435 times, according to the latest FBI statistics. And how many times does someone walk outside and not get murdered in the city of Chicago in a given year? 2,081,425,640 times, according to me (population x days/year x 2 trips out avg/day). That means that the back-of-the-envelope-calculation odds of you getting murdered when you leave your house is 0.0000002, or 1 out of 5,000,000 times. That’s five million, yo.

The odds of you getting murdered in Chicago are so astronomically low that it would be ridiculous to even think about worrying about it. And yet what do you see virtually every night on the news? A report about someone getting murdered. Put that into your brain every day for years, and tell me you won’t get a vastly disproportionate view of how dangerous your city is. And of course that impacts the way you think and act and speak and a host of other things.

Let’s forget about the practicality for a second and think about something a little more abstract. If you’re filling your head with these kinds of thoughts, aren’t you displacing the same volume of thoughts that could be focused on better things? For instance, coming up with ways to make this world a better place, rather than complaining about how bad it currently is? When you’re focused on positive solutions, you tend to see more possibilities. When you’re focused on the negative, you tend to see more problems.

It steals your time.
This one’s easy. Let’s say you spend an hour a day consuming news in one form or another. If most of the arguments above hold true, it’s a very counterproductive way to spend that hour. If you instead spent an hour a day doing something proactive, be it as simple as consuming positive ideas, or possibly the more complex act of creating beauty, how much better would life be for you and even those around you? I guarantee you’d be healthier. 100% guarantee that. And the people around you would probably be a lot better off, too.

So here’s the deal, guys. I’m not saying that life should be all pancakes and roses. Seriously, I’m not even an optimist. But if I have the choice to ingest garbage or create beauty, I’ll take the second option every time.

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What else have I quit?

MTV (this has been gone for over 2 years!), Gossip Blogs, Gossiping (working very hard on that!), reading news, not being materialistic (working also very hard on that!) , watching the real housewives (1 year strong! I was so tired of the nastiness)

Something that I enjoy…watching the Duggar family on tv.

A lot of people think they are nuts. So be it. I really enjoy watching a show where the children are well behaved and it is a positive and uplifting show. I am always so happy once I am done with the show. I enjoy it.

In other words it was a big day today, Max went to day care!

He slep from 1030-130 and then again from 215-515 and woke up wanting food. After that he was smiling and talking and I had to leave for work so Matt got a talky baby to wake up to!

Matt put it best…Max knew it was a big day…he was thrilled! 

He is in the red!