The shelf-life of information

News occasionally becomes a potent source of anxiety. While the doomsday scenarios have been part of the news cycle for a long time, it is after all, what sells best in the news business. The string of bad news that we've seen of late (Iran-US relations, Coronavirus, etc.) has been affecting me more than usual because my monkey brain is always tempted to follow them and cooks up anxiogenic fictional scenarios as a result. The reality is that I have no control over it and other than making me nervous, the news isn't doing anything to help with this.

So I decided to go back to books and resume blatantly ignoring the news, in order to maintain a healthier mind. If you really think about it, 95% of news items today, will literally not matter tomorrow, so what I lose in terms of knowledge about what's happening in the world, I gain in peace of mind. Things that really matter, like books, by and large, have a much longer shelf life than the news in terms of the validity of their knowledge.

I'm happy to report that ignoring the news deliberately really is working. I have little to no idea of what's going on in the world and I'm better for it.

 

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