All good points.. Serenity, nobody makes you open that thread, I don't.
In my 30's, when I had my MLT, I used to watch the news, read the paper and listen to the radio all the time. That's what my parents did and I guess I was sort of emulating them because I lacked my own sense of identity and I really missed that connected feeling you used to get from everyone in the same town listening to the host every morning. I used to call them the soap on a rope days.
I didn't realize though, those days were gone. We're living in a post baby jessica, always on and the attention goes to the loudest screamer world of non stop, 24 hour unrelenting media.
Anyway, after xw left, after BD, i stopped tuning in. I didn't realize how much negativity it brought into my life. I also realized a large part of our interactions were rushing home to complain about something awful we saw on the news. I realized too, people bond over complaining. Works sucks, traffic sucks, the weather sucks..
It's just a bad habit we are absolutely 100% in control of. When people ask how you're doing, why not say something good? Why not find blogs and news outlets online that only post positive stuff? You know what really makes me happy? Medical and science news. Advances are being made in so many fields that you don't even hear about, because negative stuff sells. Cancer research, environmental research, psychology, therapy.. there's a whole positive world that's going on that simply doesn't sell like negative news.
You have to be your own adult. it's hard to do, but to modify an old saying, if you don't have anything nice to hear, turn it off.