Among Friends

[Mistreatedbycs]

I need to stop watching the news and read internet articles.

Need to give myself a break and just do something else....it's too stressful

[sophiamaria2]

ditto... I've recently blocked all the animal rescue fb pages from mine...I just can't take on the evil and heartbreak... everytime I got on fb I would see something more disturbing than the time before.   I just need a break...

[hckynutjohn]

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@Mistreatedbycs wrote:

I need to stop watching the news and read internet articles.

Need to give myself a break and just do something else....it's too stressful

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Here are 2 steps you can consider. 1-you can continue to do what you say you are now doing. 2-do as I have always done, and suggested to others. Why "stress" or worry about " things over which you have no control"?

Many things I don't like happening now in our country, actually the whole world, which I also will include defenseless animals. Most of these things I cannot control, but my wife and I do as much as we are able to help animals that are suffering, or to prevent them from suffering.

Both of us have many things over which we could stress, but we choose to eliminate stressing about the things "over which we have no control". You may have to work on it, maybe for months or years, but it can be done.

Why waste your limited amount of energy(yes, we all have a maximum level) on "things over which you have no control"? Use that energy for thinking or doing positive things and I think your life might be better because of it.  =^..^=

[VaBelle35]

I cut off all national news and newspapers a long time ago.

What I do is follow a few news outlets on Twitter.

This allows me decide if I want to read more about a news item or not.  It allows me to decide if I want to view pictures or video or not.

I am up on all that is going on in the world.  I just choose how deep into the details I need to get.

I follow my local newspapers on Facebook and my local politicians on Facebook as well.

[Moonchilde]

When the news starts to get to me on any given week, I just back away from nearly all outlets for a week or 10 days. I will know of huge events, but the lesser, often totally depressing quasi-newsworthy things I can do without for a while.

By the same token, even if something totally upsets me, I can't pretend things like it will stop happening because I don't see it or read about it. While I may get overloaded and bail from time to time, it's only temporary and I live in the world and ALL of its issues, whether I want to or not.

[gmkb]

To the people who believe we have no control over some of what is going on in this country/world.  We do have some control when we go into that voting booth in Nov, 2016.  If you are content with things as they are you vote for the person who will continue with current ways of doing things.  If you are not content, you can make a choice to select someone who will do things differently.  Every time someone is voted into office, it is you and I who have exerted control over how things will be done.

[cotton4me]

I rarely watch or read the news anymore.  I prefer to focus on more uplifting things.  The world will be the world. 

[Vivian]

I really understand why people become upset and angry about the news. There are times when I just have to turn away. I subscribe to the NY Times online and watch Morning Joe BBC News and CBS News. By the time I finish with BBC and move on to CBS News, I've had enough. My husband sits there and watches all the misery but I often go to another room. The evil and cruelty can be just too much sometimes. However, ignorance is not always bliss. Someone once said that people get the governments they deserve. I don't think that's always true but to some extent I agree that if we remove ourselves from civic and humanitarian issues, someone else will be more than happy to move in and take over for us.

[hckynutjohn]

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@gmkb wrote:

To the people who believe we have no control over some of what is going on in this country/world.  We do have some control when we go into that voting booth in Nov, 2016.  If you are content with things as they are you vote for the person who will continue with current ways of doing things.  If you are not content, you can make a choice to select someone who will do things differently.  Every time someone is voted into office, it is you and I who have exerted control over how things will be done.

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 I never fail to vote, but I am also a realist when it comes to what I really believe will change. So far in the last 20 years I've seen both parties run things and not much has changed, and what has?  Not many issues for the better.

Sure it is a right to vote and I wish everyone would vote. Again I am a realist and know they won't, and many that do vote have little real knowledge about the many serious, even possible deadly, issues facing our country.

So do I really believe my 1 vote counts in what happens around the world? No I do not, but it is something I believe in and will continue to do. However I have no realistic beliefs that my 1 vote will give me "control over things over which I have not control".

To be that would be little more than a "pipe dream" as opposed to realism.

[LilacTree]

When I saw those "boats" (hardly) reaching the shores from Syria that are supposed to hold 15, yet each were holding over 50 human beings, including many babies and children, leaving everything behind but the clothes on their backs, fleeing for their lives from Isis, I lost it. 

One woman spoke and then made the physical movement of having one's head cut off . . . and just seeing the fear in her face . . . many grown men getting out of the boats and kissing the rocks on the ground.  The reporter saying many lives were lost on the way across, but for these poor people, it was a better way to die.

ISIS is evil incarnate.  They are inhuman.  Yet they grow.

Of all the news I watched yesterday that was by far the most fearsome.