How to Avoid Getting Upset with the News

I’m not sure I have the answer

Matt Fradd is an interesting fellow. I listen to his “Pints with Aquinas” podcast almost weekly on YouTube. He recently went offline purposely for the entire month of August, as part of a yearly cleansing ritual. His intent was to help him focus on the things in his life that really matter and within the sphere of his influence. His message upon his return was that the world went on without him, that it didn’t need him to know about it. Matt’s exercise reminded me that I should prioritize on things I can do something about—like caring for the people around me. I realized that I spend too much time getting annoyed, stressed, and anxious about things I can do very little about.

However, I do find it difficult to go on a news blackout. The previous week to this one, taking Matt’s example imperfectly, I avoided reading news sites during the day, and I took a break from watching my favorite commentary podcasts. And, surprise, surprise, I felt better. But then this past week, I slowly but surely slipped back into my old habits, and got upset about several things. Two items stood out.

The first, a story bothered me greatly about a Canadian shop teacher in Canada who is bouncing around in class with beachball-sized fake boobs. The thing that upset me the most was not so much this pathetic human being himself but the school officials and their superiors who are protecting him. They are so lost in their ridiculous ideology that they can no longer tell who is a pervert and who is not, and would rather protect the teacher’s right to be a pervert than his victims, the children attending the school.

And then I couldn’t miss this appalling and on-going story that Matt Walsh is exposing—that hospitals around the country (even in the red state of Tennessee!) are chemically castrating and mutilating children (calling it “gender affirming,” an obvious “positive” cover name). I was bothered by the fact that there are parents who would do this to their kids and that there are doctors catering to this obvious “Munchausen syndrome by proxy.” That it is this sick syndrome is blindingly obvious when you see the statistics that children of liberal white women are predominately finding themselves in this gender-confused situation.

I’m glad these matters are being given an airing in public and being actively addressed. Yet, the problem for me is that instead of spending time angry about the guy in Canada, I could have worked a bit longer on participating in my church ministry and focusing on my own state’s issues. Compounding the problem is that it’s so easy to focus on that larger “out of scope” bad guy. There’s no need for self-reflection when you do that. And if you fail to self-reflect, you might start believing that your side is as perfectly good as the other side is perfectly bad. In my own experience. I once thought that the secular press was only trying to scandalize the Catholic Church by covering sex abuse cases. It took me a long time to realize that the Church’s leaders were not perfectly innocent and that there indeed was a problem. The secular press, whatever their motives, were doing their job, and that it was better to get this stuff out into the light.

All that said, I need to take my own advice and focus on something much harder, like my own sphere of influence. Given that, it’s time to get back to caring for my family, working on my church ministry, and helping get the “Yes for Life” ballot initiative passed in Kentucky.

Vote Yes on Issue 2!