REAL TALK | I hate watching the news.

It's really not uncommon that I hear the words uttered from my husband's mouth, "weren't you a journalism major?"  This is because I absolutely, positively, without any question HATE watching, listening to, reading anything about the news.

The reason is simple: it's always seeming to be so negative anymore.  It gets really exhausting seeing another story about a shooting, or about a hate crime of any sort, or a crazed person taking the life of a child for no good reason.  It's nothing but sadness.  My husband always tells me that things don't hit the news unless an extra-ordinary thing -- meaning something that doesn't happen on the regular.  But, it's all becoming so common anymore that it is hard to believe that anymore.

Another reason I hate the news?  It just increases my anxiety levels.  I don't talk a ton about it, but I do struggle with a decent level of anxiety... enough that I am on medication for it.  I panic really easily.  In fact, I've been banned from WebMD by one of my best friends and my husband because I used to be horrible at self-diagnosing myself.  For the longest time, I had convinced myself that I had a brain aneurysm and it was on the verge of bursting at any moment.  Turns out it was literally just work-related stress, and once I left the job I was working at the time, the headaches I was having every day completed went away.  I've been reminded more times than I would like to admit that stress can do a number on the body... that was one of those times.

Let me step back a bit.  I'm not completely oblivious to the news.  Obviously.  Social media, which I am on frequently, has been saturated by news sources -- real and fake -- and stories are shared hundreds of millions of times in a day, week, month.  It's hard to miss.  I would be lying if I said that I didn't frequently hide pages from populating in my news feed because I didn't want to see the stories anymore.  I have also unfollowed people on Facebook because of how much they post things -- really, I should just unfriend them at this point but... I digress.

I try to keep myself as informed as I feel necessary.  My husband, bless his heart, has stopped trying to watch the news on TV and relies upon various news outlet podcasts on his phone for his news.  I know it makes me sound crazy, but I totally appreciate his being respectful of my disdain of news.

I just really, really hate watching the news.  Show me the happy stories -- like puppies being adopted or a kid getting a cochlear implant so he can hear.  Then I'll watch.  Until then... selective informing is my game.