Right now, it seems like basically all the news is bad. It's not good anywhere in the world, but the U.S. in particular seems to be a Russian nesting doll of disaster: the crisis of an angry mob storming the Capitol wrapped in the crisis of a disputed election wrapped in the yearlong twin crises of a global pandemic and the biggest depression since the Great one, all wrapped in the decades-long crisis of a looming climate disaster that could literally kill us all. No one's even paying attention to the biggest threats right now because they're too busy dealing with the most immediate ones. So many terrible things happened in 2020 that the word of the year chosen by users of Dictionary.com was "unprecedented." The Oxford English Dictionary couldn't even settle on a single word of the year, instead naming an assortment of words like "Blursday," "covidiots," and "doomscrolling," which has taken the place of what we used to call reading the news.
The thing about that last one is, dwelling on bad news is part of what got us into this mess in the first place. As a recently replayed Hidden Brain podcast pointed out, both social media and conventional media have focused excessively on terrible stories that spark outrage, because that's what attracts the most clicks and likes. Unfortunately, it's also what sows dissension and stokes the fires of partisan rancor, vitriol, conspiracy theories, and hatred — all resulting in outbreaks of violence that make for more bad news, more doomscrolling, and more division.
How can we break the cycle?
I'm not sure, but the best idea I could come up with was this: start sharing good news.
Instead of automatically clicking, liking, and sharing every horrible story that you see, try clicking, liking, and sharing the good ones. Sure, there aren't as many of them out there; because we've been trapped in the doomscrolling cycle so long, they aren't as likely to show up in your social media feed or even on the front page of your local newspaper. But they are out there. Every issue of the Christian Science Monitor features a story about someone who's doing good in the world, and Reasons to Be Cheerful serves up a steady diet of nothing but good news, every week. They're mostly small-scale, local stories about one city, one company, one project — but at least they're something to counter the constant scrolling of doom. And the more of these stories we all click, like, and share, the more popular they will become, and the more incentive both social media and mainstream media will have to offer up more of the same.
So my New Year's resolution for 2021 (along with continuing to try new vegan recipes each month) is to share good news when I find it. If it's good news about the environment, or about money, I'll share it on this blog. If not, I'll share it via social media or email with my family and friends. Basically, I'll just do my best to pass on a little bit of much-needed hope by whatever means I have to hand.
I've started off already this weekend. Just now, I posted on my local Nextdoor group to tell everyone about a local store employee who went the extra mile for me and Brian, rather than complaining about one who was rude or unhelpful. And to my mom, I passed along this summary from Reasons to be Cheerful of the 112 best things that happened, even amid all the chaos, in 2020 — from the expansion of renewable energy worldwide to the virtual eradication of homelessness in the third-largest city in Illinois to the success of community policing in Camden, right here in my home state of New Jersey.
So watch this space for more good news in 2021. If nothing else, it'll give me something to write about when there's no particular news to share in my ecofrugal life — and if it forces me to go searching for positive stories, so much the better.
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