ADDICTED TO THE NEWS PFFFFFFF…

If you live in Peru or watch international news, you will have heard that before and after the presidential elections, a great political and social crisis broke out in the country. All this chaos made me, who I don’t really follow the news, fall into a kind of addiction to watching political programs of independent youtubers and following the positions of some friends and acquaintances on Facebook who were aligned with my way of seeing the situation, even though I was aware that once I started watching the videos or the FB, it was difficult for me to stop, very difficult. I told myself “I’m going to see only two more”, but did it work? NOT. The information out there didn’t vary much from day to day so I definitely knew I didn’t need to follow it so assiduously but I still did. And unsurprisingly, the news and chats on FB were awful. Judging politicians and people who supported the opposite position to mine became a daily bread and all these did was lower my energy and connect me with an impulse that took me down. Pure addiction! Do you identify with this dynamic? I spent about two weeks stuck to this bad habit. Not that I didn’t do anything else, but this constant seeing what had happened and being horrified by the “lack of judgment and conscience” of people and feeling that I was right of course, was like gasoline for the ego.
 
Aware of the toxicity of this behavior, I decided to cut the consumption of news on networks. (I don’t have a television and I don’t want to.) I admit that the temptation was strong in the first days. There was that voice that told me: you have worked well today, relax and watch a couple of videos; see what had happened today. Mmmmmmm … I had tried before dosing my consumption of this type of information without success so total abstinence was the only thing I had left and it worked: What a relief! How much energy and mental space I have now that I have cut squarely with such toxicity! What do I do now with my free time, which is especially at night when I finish work? I tide up, clean, watch permaculture tutorials. (Thanks to them I have just discovered, for example, that two, of which I considered weeds, are edible, medicinal and also great food); I light candles and incense, call my family, or go to bed extra early; other times I read or meditate, listen to an interesting podcast, evaluate my day, and make plans for the next.
 
It feels good to have regained my will and mental sovereignty; choosing to do things that nurture and strengthen me is like coming back home. Oh, and if something happens that is “important” to know, I’ll find out. As it has always been.